Show guide
Anything Goes
Anything Goes is Cole Porter's 1934 shipboard comedy about mistaken identities and a nightclub singer named Reno Sweeney, set aboard an ocean liner bound for England.
- Broadway premiere
- 1934
- Music by
- Cole Porter
- Genre
- Comedy
- Setting
- 1930s
Anything Goes: quick answers
What is Anything Goes about?
- Aboard an ocean liner sailing from New York to London, nightclub singer Reno Sweeney and gangster Moonface Martin help stowaway Billy Crocker win the heiress Hope Harcourt away from her stuffy English fiance, Lord Evelyn Oakleigh.
When did Anything Goes open on Broadway?
- Anything Goes opened on Broadway on November 21, 1934, at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre) and ran 420 performances. Its 1987 and 2011 Broadway revivals both won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.
Is Anything Goes a Golden Age musical?
- Not strictly. It premiered in 1934, about a decade before Oklahoma! launched the Golden Age in 1943, and belongs to the breezier musical comedy era that came before it, though its Cole Porter songs became standards.
Where and when is Anything Goes set?
- Anything Goes takes place aboard the S.S. American, an ocean liner sailing from New York to London.
Has Anything Goes played in London's West End?
- Anything Goes first played London at the Palace Theatre in 1935. Trevor Nunn's 2002 National Theatre revival, which moved to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, won the Olivier for Outstanding Musical Production, and Sutton Foster led a 2021 revival at the Barbican.
Is there a Anything Goes movie?
- Paramount filmed it in 1936 with Ethel Merman and Bing Crosby, keeping only four Porter songs. A 1956 Paramount film, again with Crosby plus Donald O'Connor and Mitzi Gaynor, kept the title and some Porter songs but told a new story.
The story of Anything Goes
The show unfolds aboard the ocean liner SS American as it sails from New York to England, where stowaway Billy Crocker sneaks on board to pursue Hope Harcourt, the woman he loves, even though she is engaged to the stiff English aristocrat Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. Nightclub singer and former evangelist Reno Sweeney, who carries a torch for Billy herself, helps orchestrate a string of disguises and mix ups to bring the right couples together.
Complicating matters further is Moonface Martin, a small time gangster traveling in disguise as a minister, who becomes tangled up in Billy's scheming. The show is a breezy farce of mistaken identity and shipboard romance, built for comic momentum rather than weighty themes, and it remains a showcase for old fashioned musical comedy craftsmanship.
The music and the makers
Cole Porter wrote both the music and the witty, wordplay filled lyrics, with a book originally by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse that was substantially reworked by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse before opening. Porter's score is a hallmark of the 1930s musical comedy sound, full of sophisticated rhymes, sly innuendo, and irresistibly hummable melodies.
Its songs, including the title number Anything Goes, I Get a Kick Out of You, and You're the Top, rank among the most enduring standards of the American musical theatre songbook. That combination of clever lyric writing and effortlessly tuneful melody is what has kept the score in constant revival for nearly a century.
Anything Goes on Broadway
Anything Goes opened on Broadway on November 21, 1934 at the Alvin Theatre, starring Ethel Merman as Reno Sweeney, William Gaxton as Billy Crocker, and Victor Moore as Moonface Martin, and it became one of the biggest hits of the 1930s. The original production ran for more than four hundred performances at a time when that was considered an exceptional success.
The show has been revived on Broadway several times, notably in 1987 at Lincoln Center with Patti LuPone as Reno and in a Tony Award winning 2011 revival starring Sutton Foster. Those revivals, along with its many songs that entered the American standards repertoire, have kept Anything Goes a fixture of Broadway more than eighty years after it first opened.
Anything Goes: frequently asked questions
Is Anything Goes a Golden Age musical?
Not in the usual sense. The Golden Age of Broadway musicals is generally dated from Oklahoma! in 1943 to the mid 1960s, and Anything Goes premiered in 1934, nearly a decade earlier, as part of the freewheeling musical comedy era that came before it.
When and where is Anything Goes set?
Anything Goes takes place aboard the S.S. American, a luxury ocean liner sailing from New York to London in 1934, the same year the musical premiered on Broadway.
Who are the main characters in Anything Goes?
The main characters are Reno Sweeney, an evangelist turned nightclub singer originated by Ethel Merman; Billy Crocker, a young Wall Street broker who stows away to pursue the debutante Hope Harcourt; and Moonface Martin, Public Enemy No. 13, who travels disguised as a minister.
When did Anything Goes open on Broadway?
Anything Goes opened on Broadway on November 21, 1934, at the Alvin Theatre.
Who composed Anything Goes?
Cole Porter wrote the music and lyrics, with a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, later revised by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse.
What is Anything Goes about?
It is a shipboard farce about a stowaway pursuing the woman he loves, a nightclub singer scheming to help him, and a gangster disguised as a minister, all aboard an ocean liner to England.
Can you name today's mystery Broadway show?
Play the Show Guesser