Let Them Eat Cake!

Yesterday the cast met for the first time to do a read-through of the script for "Anything Goes." The energy from auditions carried through to the read-through, and the whole group had a lot of fun. Everybody who auditioned is now part of the cast, and it seemed to me everybody was excited to be a part of it.

When people arrived at the read through, there was a circle of about 30 chairs on stage. The cast sat down, and within the period of three hours they read through the script. There script gained a lot of laughs, which just made people more excited to get involved with this production. It is one thing to read the script to yourself, but when it is read aloud a lot of things that might have been unnoticeable in silent reading came through. I will say one thing though; if you are a fan of puns, this show is definitely for you. Every time a song was written to occur in the script, we all listened to the song from an iPod hooked into the amazing sound system at Allen theater. It was a nice thing to see how the songs play off the script, and it was a lot easier to imagine how the scene is played out when you hear both the music and the dialogue.

One major thing that Mr. Howard brought up yesterday at the read-through was how challenging it will be to keep the feel of the musical, but still make it relevant to today. A lot of the humor is far off from our everyday jokes, and the songs are a throwback to a completely different time. It is going to be a fun task to try and convey the feel of the time "Anything Goes" was written, but still "wink an eye" at the audience, as Mr. Howard says. It is going to take the hard work of everybody in the cast to pull this off, and everyone will play a crucial role in the big picture of this show.

The last big thing about read-throughs is the tradition of cake. Cake is a wonderful thing; it is delicious, festive, and can always brighten your day. Therefore, it makes sense that there is cake at every read through, and the cast is free to quietly get up and cut themselves some cake during the course of the read through. It is just a little something else to look forward to when coming to read-through, and it was the finishing touch on the great time yesterday.

by Conor Ryan, '15