If you want to introduce your children to musical theater, Village Theatre's rollicking Annie Get Your Gun is a great start.
It's got a plot you can easily follow: Hick sharp-shooting girl – Annie Oakley – comes to town with her three younger siblings and is persuaded to take on the champion rifleman of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. She beats the dashing Frank Butler, falls for him hard, joins the Wild West Show and gets top billing, infuriating Frank, who's falling for her. There are separations, hi-jinks, sharp words, soft words and, in the end, a great compromise and love "snappily ever after." It's fun to note that the musical is based on the real-life Annie and her husband Frank, and you can read her life story in the program while you're waiting for the show to begin.
It's got songs you can recognize and want to sing along to: Irving Berlin's "There's No Business Like Show Business," "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun" and "I've Got the Sun in the Morning and the Moon at Night: Moonshine Melody." Bet you can't leave the theater without singing, "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better." The singing is a treat, especially that of Vicki Noon as Annie. Noon was part of Village Theatre's KIDSTAGE Acting Studio as a teen, and has toured nationally with the musicals Mamma Mia and Wicked. A homegrown major talent!
There are imaginative sets and great costumes, as Village Theatre productions always have. If your kids are into fashion and clothes, they're going to love all the changes of dress. A hotel front, the interior of a train and the deck of a ship are slid and lowered onto the small stage effortlessly, and how scene designer Bill Forrester got a hotel ballroom to look three times larger than the stage, I can't figure out!
The show is appropriate for children ages 7 or 8 and older, as its running time is about two hours, with an intermission. There are themes of stereotypical male/female roles and racial prejudice (involving a young girl, her half-Indian suitor and her angry older sister), which were new in 1946, when the Broadway musical was launched. They're less fresh today, but still might be a topic of discussion for younger kids. There's shooting on stage, but it's marksmanship, not violence, and unless your child is extremely afraid of loud noises, not at all scary. Swearing is mild – of the "hell" and "damn" variety – and there's some sexual innuendo – "Doing What Comes Naturally."
Musical theater is not every child's cup of tea, but this is a fast-moving, fun way to find out if your child will like it. A few audience members chose to dress up in Western duds, and doing so might make it more of an outing.
IF YOU GO
Where: Francis J. Gaudette Theatre, 303 Front St. N., Issaquah, and Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave., Everett.
When: Nov. 9 to Dec. 31 in Issaquah; Jan. 6 to 29 in Everett. Hours for both: Wednesday through Saturday, 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday matinees, 2 p.m.; select Tuesday evenings, 7:30 p.m.; select Sunday evenings, 7 p.m.
Cost: $22-$62 in Issaquah; $20-$56 in Everett.
Contact: 425-392-2202 in Issaquah; 425-257-8600 in Everett; www.villagetheatre.org.
