This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Klea Blackhurst: Oh, here we go. Oh, here we go. Okay.

[0:03] ♪ Musical number: "You Don't Have to Come from a Great Big Town" — performed by Klea Blackhurst ♪

[0:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome everybody to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theatre history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff. Today we are covering the classic musical Annie Get Your Gun, with someone who might just be the closest thing to having Merman herself on the show. She's got the voice. She's got the knowledge. And best of all, she might not tell you to go f*** yourself as much as Ethel did. Everyone, please welcome Klea Blackhurst.

[1:13] Klea Blackhurst: Thank you, Jeff. I'm so happy to be here. This is exciting. This is my era right here. We can talk it through. We'll be surprised at how much knowledge is tucked away in there that I just was waiting to get out. Hit me. Hit me.

[1:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Let's start right off the bat. When did you realize you had this connection with Broadway legend Ethel Merman? Because it does feel like a connection to me.

[1:36] Klea Blackhurst: It is. I grew up in Salt Lake City. My mom passed away in 2018. Up until that point, just a couple years before that, she was a community theater actress in Salt Lake. She never wanted to be a pro. She just did not like auditions. Not like them. She just didn't want to do them. That took her out of the business right away. I hear you, girl. But she had done lots of stuff. One of the famous things is she was pregnant with me when she played 8-0 Annie.

[2:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What?

[2:15] Klea Blackhurst: So there's this little pregnant girl singing I Can't Say No. That's good family lore. She had a lot of show albums, which I find kids who love musical theater a lot of times, those of us grown up will say, oh, my parents had this collection. My three favorite albums were Half a Sixpence with Tommy Steele, I Do, I Do with Robert Preston and Mary Martin, and Annie Get Your Gun, the original 1946 with Ethel with the squirrel rifle in her moccasins and buckskin dress.

[2:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What? I had no idea.

[2:53] Klea Blackhurst: Full body chills. Yeah. So that's kind of my real sound print around what I love about all of this. Whatever those three things have in common, you could kind of come down to me. Like I don't sing things in a certain key. I sing things in a certain tempo. It's like that's my setting. Like B flat, I don't know, but can we take it about here? So anyway, it's not until junior high school maybe when I got my hands on Gypsy that I sort of put the dots together between Annie Oakley and Rose. It's like, oh, the voice is this really specific thing.

[3:34] Klea Blackhurst: But in terms of Annie Get Your Gun and that album in my house growing up, my mom sounds like that in real life when she was singing.

[3:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Really?

[3:43] Klea Blackhurst: Oh, yeah, that same kind of belt, that same kind of thing. So she sounds like that when I go to rehearsals with her as a little kid or her singing group gigs as I was growing up. And then Ethel Merman sounds like that on the record. That's just what a woman's voice sounds like to me. So the sopranos come in much later because if the song was kind of slow on a record, I just pick the needle up and go to the next one that was fast. Next, please. Next, please. I've grown to appreciate all of those tempos and actresses that have a different feeling, but I was not going to be one. I was not going to join their ranks myself.

[4:20] Klea Blackhurst: Right. So that's kind of where that comes from. I mean it's just an honest like early exposure and a very clear attraction to a specific kind of voice. I know I've told this on the podcast before, but I was a big fan of high belters, especially, you know, the high belting female voice. And I got to a place in college where I looked at my iTunes library and I was just ashamed, just deeply, deeply ashamed of what I had collected. And I realized that I needed to get some more straight sounding music in my library. So I picked out Sheryl Crow and Thiel.

[5:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There you go.

[5:04] Klea Blackhurst: That throws them off. 100%. Big bushes to hide behind. I think it's good. Yeah, it's good. Throw them off. Throw them off. Adorable.

[5:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. So Ethel Merman born Ethel Agnes Zimmerman, right?

[5:19] Klea Blackhurst: That's right. As a young adult, she was a secretary and then would sing in nightclubs at night.

[5:26] Klea Blackhurst: That's right. She was an excellent, not just a secretary, she really excelled at the Pittman method of shorthand and was an incredibly fast typer. And she kept up her typing all through her life. And so she was like a really, really, she had her skills ready.

[5:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[5:46] Klea Blackhurst: Her boss was this, Caleb Bragg was his name, and they ran a vacuum booster brake company in Long Island where she lived. So she could wake up late. Of course, it was Long Island, right? Of course, where she lived. So she gets herself home at night. She lives with her parents all the way through her early successes.

[6:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, wow.

[6:05] Klea Blackhurst: Because she's just an only child and they love her and everybody's fine over there. And so she would wake, if she came in late, he sort of had late hours himself. He wasn't always totally punctual. So if he wasn't there, she would take a quick nap in the ladies' room and the girls would look out for her and say, he's here, he's here. And she'd get up and brush off her dress. Get that hair in.

[6:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So, yes.

[6:29] Klea Blackhurst: So, yes, the skills, the secretarial skills are definitely part of it, including in her early successes, also taking notes in shorthand with changes that are happening in the script and stuff. And then she would go home, type them up, and bring them back to rehearsal.

[6:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh, that's fantastic.

[6:45] Klea Blackhurst: So that's not an insignificant fact in like how she was just practical.

[6:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right.

[6:51] Klea Blackhurst: And disciplined. Very disciplined. Yeah, very disciplined and very, you know, like what you saw is what you got. The Zimmerman happens, I'm sure you have this in your research. She, you know, it's like the name is so long.

[7:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it's not going to fit on the marquee, folks.

[7:07] Klea Blackhurst: Not going to fit up there. So she takes off the Zim and it has two Ns. So she takes off the final N and puts it up there, you know, in respect to her father. It's like she didn't want to totally destroy the name, although it's pretty destroyed. But anyway, it's not a different. But it's in there, right?

[7:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it's in there. And I mean, I did read that she had had the chance to use her mother's maiden names.

[7:26] Klea Blackhurst: Right.

[7:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But she didn't. And she wanted to pay respect to her father. And it's, you know, it's not as bad as Judy Garland, right?

[7:34] Klea Blackhurst: No.

[7:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No.

[7:36] Klea Blackhurst: Little Francis. The gum is a good one to get rid of gum. You can't even take off the final M and come up with anything good.

[7:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, we don't want to think of gum in the bottom of a urinal when we think of Dorothea Vermaas.

[7:48] Klea Blackhurst: No, we don't.

[7:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All right. So, Ethel, I mean, this voice, right? As soon as people hear this voice, as soon as composers start hearing this voice, they want to write music for her. But my question is, I guess, how much of her success was the fact that at this time there was an amplification?

[8:06] Klea Blackhurst: Well, you've landed on exactly. You've landed on it. Prior to Merman, probably the most successful stage persona woman is Marilyn Miller, who is a soprano and she's, you know, sort of this lilting, wonderful, strong, you know. I mean, she was beloved, right?

[8:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right.

[8:29] Klea Blackhurst: Now, shows were very string heavy. They'd have lots of violins and lots of cellos and it kind of built from there. The brass section and all of that was not as, you know, they weren't as big because you couldn't compete with them.

[8:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, exactly.

[8:44] Klea Blackhurst: So, you have Ethel Merman come in and that first night of Girl Crazy when she sings I Got Rhythm and she becomes an overnight sensation, the band is made up of Red Nichols Orchestra, which is Red Nichols on trumpet, Gene Krupa on drums, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey.

[9:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh.

[9:02] Klea Blackhurst: Who else was in there? There's a couple more really famous, famous people and she was able to compete with them. So, this was sound wise. So, you get this really like brassy sound and you get her coming out over it. And it just wasn't something that, voices just didn't do that. So, she was like hitting the back. I've stood on that stage many times. It's now the Neil Simon. It was the Elvin. In that, I'm sure the deck has been replaced hundreds of times since 1930. But the airspace is the airspace and so you can feel where the back of the house is and she could get there with no problem.

[9:40] Klea Blackhurst: Many years ago, I got the original I Got Rhythm charts from the Gershwin estate and asked if I could use them on a concert and they let me get them. There's only one way to sing those charts and it's loud, louder and a little bit louder. There is no chance for any nuance. It's not possible because it's just a bop, bop, bop, bop and your voice is like on that C holding the note. So, I think she develops a certain kind of voice based on what you become successful doing. This is what audiences wanted from her and this is what she was going to give them and she was incredibly gifted at it.

[10:20] Klea Blackhurst: She really was and then the imitations start coming along after that. But she's kind of the first voice really to like set that as a star. She's the first one to come. And as a stage presence too, right? Like her voice wasn't the only thing reaching the back of the house. She had this larger-than-life persona that everybody could enjoy in that theater.

[10:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yep, you can see it. Thank goodness she made enough movies in the 30s that we can see she wasn't successful and embraced by Hollywood. They didn't know what to do with her exactly. But when you watch these movies, she does two with Eddie Cantor, one with the Ritz brothers that's terrible. I mean, they're not great movies. But watching them is fantastic because you can see what it was that was so special. One of the things in particular, you'll read all the time places that her eyes would flash.

[11:14] Klea Blackhurst: And so, I started noticing in the films, she does this thing where she'll like, she'll look like right to left and back to right really fast. And I thought, I'm sure in a Broadway house, in the back, that reads, it's that flash of white, you know, of her eyes. And I thought, you can see it in the movies, like tempered a little bit. But you're like, oh, that's what that would be. You would be getting that. And one of the first people that I've read about, and I know this happened because I was friends with Paula Lawrence, who was a contemporary of Merman, starred in something for the boys with her. They would bead their eyelashes, right?

[11:52] Klea Blackhurst: So, you do all this mascara, as much as you can, as much as you can, and then heat wax and take a safety pin and bead the end of your eyelashes so that they had more. It's not false eyelashes going on. This is like a whole other time. Wax with a bead. Look, my bedroom eyes would just close. Like, there's no way they'd even be open with all that stuff on the lid.

[12:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I know.

[12:19] Klea Blackhurst: I mean, it's just crazy when you think of those things. But we were just in a – it was a different time. That's what I think people forget, you know, like, oh, Merman – OK, so, well, if Merman went to an audition today at Ripley Greer in The Fluorescent Light, she would not be given the time of day. But this is the biggest Broadway star we will ever know because Broadway has branched out so much. You can't have 15 hit shows.

[12:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right.

[12:46] Klea Blackhurst: A hit wouldn't be counted. You just wouldn't have them anymore. But she had them because it was a different time. What a hit was was something that ran for more than six months because shows didn't run for a year. And they all closed down in the summer. So everything got a restart because of air conditioning.

[13:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Really?

[13:05] Klea Blackhurst: Oh, yeah. I mean, of course. But I didn't even think about that. That's why in the 30s you'll see, oh, this show played 300 performances or 100 performances. And they get racked up as a hit because they'll go, well, we closed for the summer.

[13:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly.

[13:17] Klea Blackhurst: That's why there were all these stars on the straw hat circuit, right? They could go to Algonquin, Maine and do a show.

[13:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure.

[13:22] Klea Blackhurst: Or the Cape Playhouse and do a show because they're all leaving the city for the summer.

[13:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, because nobody wants to be in there.

[13:28] Klea Blackhurst: Nobody wants to be in that heat. They can't, and nobody would go to the theater because it was, like, excruciatingly hot.

[13:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly.

[13:33] Klea Blackhurst: So it was just a different time, a different world that we forget to sort of take into account what –

[13:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, the context is just so important.

[13:41] Klea Blackhurst: The context of what was different, yeah.

[13:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. Now, I remember talking to you, and you said something super interesting. In, like, the same way that we play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Ethel Merman is connected to everybody in musical theater.

[13:57] Klea Blackhurst: Yes.

[13:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 20th century musical theater, especially from a not even joking standpoint, but from a historic standpoint, you can get to anybody in musical theater in America in the 20th century through Ethel Merman.

[14:13] Klea Blackhurst: Wow. I'm older than you are, right? But by the time I'm becoming – she's still on TV shows as a guest star, you know, on Love Boat and Fantasy Island and stuff when I'm coming up. So we're seeing her – in fact, there's a fabulous clip.

[14:59] Klea Blackhurst: Being, you know, she's this like, like a caricature of herself. That's right. And you forget, you have to go back into the 40s and 30s and 50s, even when you realize Cole Porter wrote five scores for Ethel Merman, five. Now, everybody thinks of him as the, you know, the bon vivant, rich Yale man, how the sophisticated, he loved writing for her, five shows. That is not insignificant. That's like, okay, all of the composers, Irving Berlin had a famous quote about she can make a good lyric great, and you better write her a great lyric, because everybody's going to hear it all the time. You're always going to be able to hear it. So that's what you, I think that's a very exciting thing to have George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Julie Stein, all these, these incredible talents. Now, have you ever done Annie Get Your Gun?

[16:00] Klea Blackhurst: I've done Annie Get Your Gun. Interestingly to me, I have not played Annie. What? I, for a number of years, did a concert version of it, where there was sort of the backstory being told, and then the songs were being done with symphonies, right? So I played it in that context. And then in 2011, I got this bizarre offer to stand by for Deborah Voigt, who is a major Wagnerian soprano, right? And this was the Glimmerglass Opera Festival, which takes place in Cooperstown, New York every year. And Francesca Zambello, who's a big director, she was taking over as artistic director of the festival. And she decided one of the opera slots every year was going to go to a great musical that could be done with opera aesthetics, which is no amplification and full orchestras. So kind of cool, right? And I played Dolly Tate in that and was standing by for Debbie. So there you have Annie Oakley being done by a Wagnerian soprano.

[17:08] Klea Blackhurst: A Wagnerian soprano. Wow. So I'd be like in the wings going like, my life is so weird. And I love it. So I got to do it. But as Dolly, I was supposed to have four performances that summer. I didn't get any performances because Debbie was having so much fun. She didn't take any of the... Well, I mean, good for her, but I'm so sorry. That's terrible for you. I know. In a way, I know. I was sorry for me too. But I got to do put in rehearsals and I got to do a final dress thing when she was away doing a concert in the still in the rehearsal room. I got to make my point playing the role. Because I thought a lot of the young opera singers that were apprentices that year or interns, there were a couple of different programs.

So there were interns and apprentices. I didn't feel like they were giving the respect. Compared to an opera, I felt like they were just treating this like it was like child's play, like a nursery rhyme, like stupid. And I'm like, no, it's stupid if you don't fill it and you don't respect it as the piece of art that it is. I did this run through and I was very proud of the response people were having to it because it's like, uh-uh, not on my watch. No, you're going to talk to Annie right now. She's going to talk in your face. Here we go.

[18:24] Jeff Parsons: I love that.

[18:25] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, that was really fun. I had a great time doing that. So I have done it, but not in quite the way you would expect.

[18:32] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, definitely not.

[18:33] Klea Blackhurst: That I would expect.

[18:33] Jeff Parsons: No, definitely not in the way that we'd expect. Now, have you ever done a production of it?

[18:38] Klea Blackhurst: Okay. So yes, this show is interesting for me. So I remember seeing a national tour of it with Rita McKenzie back in the day when I was little. And then I got to see the revival, the 1999 revival with Bernadette Peters. And I was so excited to see her. Yeah, I mean, she's like one of my idols. So it was great. But it was also the first Broadway musical I ever saw that I wasn't totally blown away by.

[19:04] Jeff Parsons: You mean that one with Bernadette?

[19:06] Klea Blackhurst: Yes, that one with Bernadette. I saw it and I was like, huh, I guess I'm not going to be completely blown away by every musical I ever see on a Broadway stage. Cut to me then doing two consecutive productions of it back to back with different teams, different creative teams, and absolutely loving it. So I mean, it's an interesting journey for me.

[19:29] Jeff Parsons: Now, which scripts?

[19:31] Klea Blackhurst: The 99 revival.

[19:32] Jeff Parsons: Okay, that revival.

[19:34] Klea Blackhurst: Because then we have three. We have the original 46. We have the 1966 revival, which basically takes out Winnie and, I mean, what's the daughter's name?

[19:47] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, Winnie and Tommy.

[19:48] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, Winnie and Tommy. And takes out that storylining completely.

[19:54] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, it's gone.

[19:55] Klea Blackhurst: And adds Old Fashioned Wedding, one of the great Irving Berlin double songs, right? Which I mean, come on. So there's been some futzing around. And your revival that you're talking about also moves things around quite a bit. I mean, it opens with a slowed down, there's no business. Yeah, with Tom Wopat.

[20:14] Jeff Parsons: Exactly.

[20:15] Klea Blackhurst: Back to the audience turning face front. Tom Wopat, is there anything better? So it's hard to like, you can't just globally speak to this piece because it's like, well, maybe you really miss Winnie and Tommy and you're very upset at the 1966. Or maybe you're over it by the time we get to Bernadette Peters or, you know, whatever. I mean, and I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but the movie version.

[20:37] Jeff Parsons: Oh my gosh, yes. And I love Betty Hutton in that movie.

[20:41] Klea Blackhurst: I mean, she is bonkers, right? Betty Hutton in a lot of things, she is so off her nut that sometimes it's too much, you know, but I actually think she's just the right amount in the movie. I like her a lot. But look, she is so brave on film. Like truly, no one else would ever, and maybe will never give that kind of performance ever again. I think it's a really good capture for her.

[21:02] Jeff Parsons: Now, the film was originally supposed to star Judy Garland, but then producers fired her. And so they brought on Betty Hutton, and apparently they did not treat her well at all. And so the fact that she was able to give that kind of a performance with so much joy and so much, you know, love is a real testament to her because truly everybody treated her terribly.

[21:23] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, just turning it on for us all these generations later to say what a great job she did. And not bringing the day in to go like, everybody here hates me. And you do see, I mean, they have, what, two or three big numbers filmed of Garland doing it. And she does look, you know, spent and a little bit in trouble.

[21:45] Jeff Parsons: That's the right way of saying it.

[21:48] Klea Blackhurst: And so, you know, it's like, well, there again is another one that you're like, yes, we all would have loved to have seen that film, but it wasn't able to be made. You flash forward a little bit. And when they were trying to replace Angela Lansbury in Mame on Broadway, Judy Garland really wanted to do it, was desperate to do it. They wanted her to do it. But ultimately, the producers wouldn't do it because of her history. They're like, we cannot count on this eight times a week. It's not going to happen. And you know, in your heart of hearts, and apparently it destroyed Judy Garland, whatever. In your heart of hearts, you know, they were right.

[22:26] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. And you know, I want to say, forget the original cast of Dreamgirls, the show that I want to go back in time and see is Judy Garland in Mame.

[22:35] Klea Blackhurst: Yes.

[22:36] Jeff Parsons: They made the right call.

[22:37] Klea Blackhurst: They made the right call. It wouldn't have been able to sustain itself. So these things happen on the different planes of existence that they happen on.

[22:46] Jeff Parsons: Absolutely. So going back to the genesis of Annie Get Your Gun, we actually get to talk about a woman. Hooray! It's so rare on this podcast that the beginning of a musical's genesis is started by a woman. And in this case, the woman is Dorothy Fields.

[23:02] Klea Blackhurst: That's right.

[23:03] Jeff Parsons: Now, by 1945, Dorothy had already become a super famous lyricist. She had won an Oscar for writing The Way You Look Tonight.

[23:12] Klea Blackhurst: Yep.

[23:13] Jeff Parsons: And she had also written many other famous songs. She was also really good friends with Ethel Merman, right?

[23:18] Klea Blackhurst: Yep.

[23:19] Jeff Parsons: And thought that creating a musical for her about famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley would be a great idea. So she ends up pitching the idea to Rodgers and Hammerstein.

[23:30] Klea Blackhurst: Correct.

[23:31] Jeff Parsons: Not to write it, but to produce it. They were enjoying this monumental success because of Oklahoma and were looking to start being producers, not just writers.

[23:40] Klea Blackhurst: That's right.

[23:40] Jeff Parsons: And they agreed with her and signed her on to write the lyrics with Jerome Kern writing the music. One problem, Jerome Kern dies. He passes away. So they turned to Irving Berlin.

[23:53] Klea Blackhurst: That's right.

[23:54] Jeff Parsons: And now we get to talk about Irving Berlin, one of the most famous songwriters we have in all of American culture. And also, this is like the first Irving Berlin show we've covered. Please forgive me, gods of musical theater. But he was born Israel...

[24:12] Klea Blackhurst: Belin.

[24:13] Jeff Parsons: Belin. Okay, thank you. Israel Belin in Russia and moved to the U.S. at age five. And the first time he changed the world as a composer was back in 1911, when he wrote Alexander's Ragtime Band, and it became just a worldwide smash and created a huge dance craze. From then on, he just wrote hit after hit, and he becomes synonymous with Tin Pan Alley, if you've ever heard of that. He also writes a lot of songs for the war efforts, I Hate to Get Up in the Morning, God Bless America. And he also wrote quite a few musicals, The Coconuts with the Marx Brothers, very early on. Louisiana Purchase, which has just an adorable score. As Thousands Cheer, which is a review and has some really profound moments.

[24:54] Klea Blackhurst: Supper Time.

[24:55] Jeff Parsons: Supper Time. I mean, my gosh, huge. But post-Oklahoma, he was pretty intimidated by what a musical theater score now needed to do for characters and plots. So Rodgers and Hammerstein really had to convince him to do it. What's so crazy, though, is he more than stepped up to this challenge. This score is completely packed with showstoppers.

[25:19] Klea Blackhurst: Oh, my gosh. He wrote, I think it was in 18 Days, he wrote 11 songs.

[25:26] Jeff Parsons: Oh, my gosh.

[25:27] Klea Blackhurst: Or 11 Days, he wrote 18 songs. I'm inverting those numbers, but either way, it's impressive. And every song in this show is a hit. I mean, you know everything I can do, I mean, Sun in the Morning, Doing What Comes Naturally. I mean, we all love and know these songs and want to listen to them. And they're priceless, really. And a couple little things I want to go back and fill in the details around it. Dorothy Fields had gone to Hollywood, and she and Jerome Kern were this killer songwriting team, winning that Oscar, like you mentioned, for The Way You Look Tonight. And so when she has this idea, she takes just the idea to Rodgers and Hammerstein, Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley, and they think it's a great idea.

And she says, I'll try to get Jerome Kern. I mean, Jerome Kern is like older than he was, he was significantly older than she was, and he's in Los Angeles living life large. I mean, it's like, you know, we all know the difference between the two places. And if you just want to like swim and play golf, we know which one is the better choice for you. So he was saying no time, you know, that's like, no, that's not my thing. And she basically like exerts her influence to say, come on, we'll have a lot of fun, whatever. So he says, okay, he came to New York to start. And right within the first couple of days before they even get started, he has a major stroke on the street.

[27:02] Klea Blackhurst: Oh my gosh, thank you, New York City.

[27:04] Jeff Parsons: And he had his ASCAP pin on, you know, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. And so he has no identification on him, but they take him to the hospital and they have this ASCAP pin. So they call ASCAP, everybody puts two and two together, it's Jerome Kern. I think he lived for about eight or nine days, and then he passed away. So that's a little more, time is of the essence dramatic, then you got all the facts right, but it's like kind of, no, there's a sense of urgency for sure. And Dorothy Fields had written a couple of ideas. I think you can't get a man with a gun. And I can't remember the other one. There's a couple of song titles that she had going in there to like pitch.

And she was the lyricist, right? She was going to write the lyrics. And Irving Berlin, of course, worked by himself. So her stepping away in this, it's like, yes, Berlin is a good choice if we can get him to do it. And so she stepped away. Interestingly, because of those song titles that she had come up with, Irving Berlin gave points in his royalty pie to Dorothy Fields in acknowledgement of those seeds. That is unheard of, Jeff. That is absolutely no. So that kind of shows you that too is part of another world.

[28:25] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, he was worried, right? Because Oklahoma changes the world in terms of this new idea that musical theater can take us somewhere and that the songs aren't going to just stop and be a pretty placeholder till the next song and the scene is going to get us to the next song and so on. It's really becomes integrated. As Richard Rogers famously said about Oklahoma, the orchestrations sound like the costumes look. So it's this like, that's the world that we're going into.

[28:56] Klea Blackhurst: So yeah, and then after, well, before all that crisis, it was after Jerome Kern is on board, Dorothy's on board, Rodgers and Hammerstein are on board, Dorothy Fields went to Ethel Merman and pitched the idea in the hospital. She had just given birth to her baby, her second child, Bobby, and she's had a C-section. She's in the hospital. She's like, you know, and Dorothy comes in with this great idea, you know, and so because of that, yeah, picture this, you're Annie Oakley. That was it. In fact, I've read and I think this is hysterical. The only actual idea when she started writing with her brother, Herbert Fields, when they start writing the book, all Dorothy Fields has as an idea is Annie's entrance, which will be the shooting of an offstage gun and a bird on Dolly's hat is going to fly off.

You know, she shot the bird off the hat. I mean, one of the great star, one of the great entrances, and that is all that she has going in. So yeah, so it's a it's a pretty great filling out of a cute idea, you know, and just the humility of this woman, right? Because she was supposed to write the lyrics, and then they get her in Berlin. And, and because it was her idea was important for enough for her to be willing to take a step back and be like, you know what? Yeah, you got the lyrics, you got the music. And I'm gonna write the book. And so she does with her brother. That's right. And she knew how to, and she knew how to do that. And her brother, Herbert Fields was one of the successful libretto writers.

So together, they were able to do, you know, a great job with great characters like Annie Oakley. Let's talk about her now. All right, Annie Oakley, real life person born Phoebe and Moses. I'm not making this up. Phoebe and Moses called Annie by her family, she had a bunch of siblings, there were six of them. And at the age of six, Annie's father, Jacob Moses dies of pneumonia, and leaves their mom, you know, by herself to raise these kids. She marries a few other times to try and, you know, better their way of life. But it ends up being Annie, who provides for the family, because she was just born with this incredible gift of shooting guns. Yeah, I mean, she doesn't know where it came from.

She just had it. I mean, her tricks were incredible. Oh, absolutely. Like using a hand mirror and having the gun behind and shooting things with using the mirror as the sight, the bullet going through a playing card that isn't this way isn't facing you, but it's the tiny edge. It's incredible to do that. Yeah, they had Okay, so Frank and Annie, when they end up together, they have a dog and the dog would have an apple on its head. And she would shoot the apple off the dog's head. I mean, can you imagine pointing a gun at your dog? I can't. No insane. And like the dog trust her. The dog's like, you got me, girl, you got it. You know, have you seen there's also on YouTube a teeny tiny, like no more than 30 seconds.

It's probably like a 1517 second little film of Frank throwing light bulbs into the air and her just shooting the light bulbs as he tosses them up. He you know, he just keeps throwing them out randomly and she gets them all. Yeah, yeah. And it's fun because you get a little look at both of them in real life. So like I said, Annie was paying the bills, right? Because of all of the games she was hunting and selling. She was able to pay the $200 mortgage to keep their family from being homeless. It's just insane at 15 years old. Amazing. Now, also at 15 years old, she meets Frank Butler, which sounds terrible now and hopefully it wouldn't happen nowadays. But at 15 years old, she meets Frank Butler.

And the reason is because there's she gets entered by the community into a shooting match against him. He comes in. He's like, you know, the traveling performer and she kicks his butt. He misses a shot and she wins much to no one's surprise, except for Frank Butler, who immediately falls in love with her. And here's where it really differs, because in Annie Get Your Gun, the musical, everything is about the gender politics, kind of the ego of these two people and whether or not they're actually going to fall in love. And in real life, these two were happily married for 50 years. And Frank Butler knew that she was the star of the show. He became her manager and she was the breadwinner and everything was fine.

Well, I think Dorothy Field said when she when they really got into doing the research, they were two of the most boring people she had ever read about in exactly the way you're talking about. Yeah, they were they were in love. They were happily married. She was the she was the obvious like selling point in an act, you know, in the kind of entertainment that was like popular in the day. And he saw the wisdom of it. I mean, there wasn't really a that that that ego thing wasn't really there. Well, now I'm realizing, you know, we started talking about your record collection, and I think I found the connection between I Do I Do and Annie Get Your Gun. I Do I Do is the story like the real story of Frank Butler and Annie Oakley, because they're just like a married couple who live and enjoy each other.

You know, that's right. That's true. That's exactly right. In fact, they they live together 50 years and only die a couple weeks apart. It was the real it was the real deal. All right, well, let's go ahead and talk through the show, because as we do, we'll be able to discuss more of these fascinating characters, many of whom were real people. Heads up, Annie Get Your Gun is one of the few musicals in theater history that has indigenous representation. So we will be talking about Native Americans. It's one of the reasons why the show probably has been rewritten as many times as it has is because we keep learning about how that representation deserves to be seen on stage. So for that very reason, we'll be discussing the 1999 revival scripts because it seems to be the most politically correct.

The show begins, like you said, with There's No Business Like Show Business. Now, originally, the show began with this song called Colonel Buffalo Bill, and it has some problematic lyrics, but basically it has kind of a Wells Fargo wagon feel to it. And I mean, it's cute. I don't miss it. It's the show. It's the show coming to town. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And when they did this revival in 1999, they brought on book writer Peter Stone to relook at the script. And our listeners will remember Peter Stone from The Will Rogers Follies and Titanic. And he uses one of his favorite devices in this new script, which is a show within a show. So during this big opening number of There's No Business Like Show Business, he is saying, all right, here we are, this troop of players, we are going to be presenting our version of the romance of Frank Butler and Annie Oakley.

Right off the bat, they're saying, this is our version of it. And I also understand why they cut Colonel Buffalo Bill, because in the 21st century, I came to the theater to watch Annie Get Your Gun, and here, there's no business like show business, right? I mean, that's why we did it. Well, I know. And that's funny, because you think of 1946, there's no business like show business isn't, there's no business like show business. Exactly. You know what I mean? It's like you don't open a show and you're like, you know what the hits gonna be? Is this what, you know, what's going to become an actual anthem for our business is nestled somewhere in this show. Exactly. About four numbers in. I mean, it's not buried deeply.

And Annie doesn't really sing it. Right, right. It's just the guys. I mean, she does a great reprise, which I love her. So it's like, instead of even in a turkey that you know will fold, you may be stranded out in the cold. So you wouldn't trade it for a sack of gold. Her variation is how I wish the folks at home could only see what's come to this girl, how proud they'd be getting paid for doing what comes naturally. I love that. So that's when I do, I've obviously I have an Ethel Merman show. And I close with that. And that's the little that's the version of it. I because I love that. I wish the folks at home could see what what's come to me by just doing what comes naturally. Right, you know, so beautiful.

I love it so much. It's better than a turkey will fold. Yeah, we don't need to discuss that. That's right. Our turkeys. We accept them, but we don't need to explore them really. Also, I do want to take a moment to congratulate you on your Ethel Merman show. I mean, what a career you've made of celebrating this woman and this time period. Thank you. Really, it's beautiful. Okay, other characters that we meet in this opening number, we got Frank Butler, of course, the sharpshooter, we got Dolly Tate, who you played. Hello. Also, the villain of the piece. I mean, she is. She's Frank Butler's assistant, but also kind of wants to wrangle him. She has a sister by the name of Winnie. And I was very protective of her because she has fallen in love with someone by the name of Tommy Keeler.

Yes, I think you're right. I was gonna say Geeless, but that's more Music Man. Yeah, Tommy Keeler. And Tommy happens to be part Native American. So Dolly is also this kind of racist bigot that's also played for laughs. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. There you have it. Next up is Chief Sitting Bull. And I want to take some time and talk about Chief Sitting Bull because what an incredible leader, real life human being, who was a leader of the Lakota tribe, and did spend some time, like this musical says, in the Colonel Buffalo Bill show. He toured with them, not for as long as maybe the musical might make us think, but he was with the show, during which he famously met Annie Oakley.

The story goes that he saw her shoot, do her act, and then wrote her a letter, asking to meet her and also giving her $65 to pay her for her time, which is crazy when we think about it, because $65 back then was probably like a thousand. Anyway, Annie Oakley receives this very generous offer, and she immediately refuses him and says, absolutely not, I'm not taking your money, but I would love to meet you. And the two meet, and they hit it off. I mean, it's so sweet. He unofficially adopts her and calls her Little Sure Shot, and they stay close for the rest of their lives. It's really, really a sweet story that is reflected in the musical. Now, a little bit more about Chief Sitting Bull. He came to prominence because of the battle for the Little Bighorn, which was a very famous battle for the Lakota people.

And he, and please forgive the white man language, he, as their medicine man, had a vision in which he saw their people celebrating a huge victory. And, of course, they did. In addition to the errors made by General Custer on the other side, many people believe it is because of this vision, the way that he was able to buoy up his people and inspire them that led to this amazing victory. I also want to touch on the way that he passed away because, oh my goodness, can this please be turned into a musical? People need to hear this story. Basically, what happened was the U.S. government went against a treaty. Surprise, surprise. They split the reservation into five different parcels of land with the intention of assimilation.

They wanted them to start farming like white people. So they send people there to teach them. However, these areas of land were incredibly arid and not great for farming, not to mention it was a particularly hot year. And so what the tribe ended up doing was turning to dance. They started doing what was called the ghost dance. And the intention of this dance was to end colonialization, to get the gods or the spirits to stop the U.S. government from continuing their colonialization. This freaked out the U.S. government. They sent troops. Long story short, a gun goes off and Chief Sitting Bull is shot. Shame. Shame on us. I mean, can you believe that story? It's insane. I would love to see that brought to life on stage because, wow, what a story that we need to be reminded of.

Yeah, that we can tackle things like that now. Oh, we absolutely can. That's tragic. That's horrible. And I do think that in this piece, Chief Sitting Bull is a charismatic person with a lot of wit, and it then falls upon us as creatives to make sure that it is cast correctly. Yeah, authentically, we talk a lot about diversity in casting and specifically with indigenous Native Americans. Man, there's just so little representation in the musical theater canon. They deserve to be represented correctly. And I believe the original production and the revival had Harry Beliver, who was an Indian. I'm not sure which tribe he was. So they were only able to get that much right then, you know. Totally.

But we've learned as we go, that's like, okay. And now I don't think, well, certainly the production I had did not have an authentic Chief Sitting Bull. Yeah, they did not have an authentic Sitting Bull. So was I'm an Indian Too just cut? Yeah. I think I remember that. Okay. I'm an Indian Too is a song that was written, but when you look at it, those lyrics just can't be rescued. And so they cut that, but maintained the really beautiful relationship between Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull. And so I feel like there's nothing lost. Right, right. I also want to give a shout out to

[43:24] Klea Blackhurst: I've been there a couple of times. They perform in the Gene Autry Museum, which is like right across the way from the LA Zoo. And a great theater company dedicated to telling the stories of indigenous Native Americans using performers who also share that lineage. So you sit down, you open your program, and in every bio is the tribe from which that performer stems. And sometimes these performers have been on Broadway. Sometimes they're just local community members, but they are all coming together to tell the stories of these underrepresented people. They create their own scripts. I mean, these are original shows. Sometimes you'll see measure for measure, but it's set on an Indian reservation or whatever it is.

It's always been a really interesting, original experience, a little rough around the edges sometimes. But that's also what makes it so original and feel so unique. I'm so grateful. And I think one of the big takeaways that I've always come away from when seeing their stuff is that you can find people to cast. There are always going to be people who want to share their lineage, their history with these characters. Yes, and those parts should be their parts. You're talking about revisions that address those problems and tries to fix them, which is what we can ask for.

[44:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, absolutely. And I always quote this on the podcast from Brené Brown, it's not about being right, it's about getting it right.

[45:04] Klea Blackhurst: That's absolutely right.

[45:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. I mean, and sometimes it takes a while, especially for us privileged white folk, and that's just the truth.

[45:14] Klea Blackhurst: Absolutely.

[45:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, so after this opening number, we've met everybody. Now it's time to meet Annie. And of course, the big star entrance, she comes out, she shoots the bird off of Dolly's hat. And she's like, why do you have a bird on your hat? And she's like, it's fashionable. I sewed it up there. And she's like, well, you're going to have to keep sewing it up there because people like me are going to keep shooting it off. It's a fantastic moment. Now she's there to sell her game to the owner of the hotel, Mr. Wilson. And he agrees and he says, it looks great, I'll buy 24. And she's like, oh, fantastic. And then turns to her family and says, who do we know who can count to 24? And the great selling point on this game is they've been shot clean through the head.

[46:01] Klea Blackhurst: Yes, just the one shot, all the meat is good.

[46:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All the meat is good. She gets them in the head. And that's why he is like, I'll take them. I'll take them all. Yeah. And then who can count to 24? It's so fantastic. Now she is there with her three younger siblings who she's always looking after. And in this moment, they take the opportunity to celebrate the great tradition they have in their family of doing what comes naturally. I mean, one of the great songs, every verse is just chock full of these super clever Irving Berlin lyrics. I'm so impressed because we often think of Cole Porter as the king of the witty lyric, right? Brush up your Shakespeare and kiss me, Kate, for example. And yet here in Annie Get Your Gun, Irving Berlin has doing what comes naturally. Can't get a man with a gun. Anything you can do. No business like show business in many ways. He out Cole Portered Cole Porter.

[46:52] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, that's a really, really great point. So true.

[46:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's a fantastic score. He had nothing to worry about. Now, after doing what comes naturally, Mr. Wilson realizes that the person to compete against Big Shot Frank Butler is, in fact, this person standing in front of him, Annie Oakley. And so he gets her into this competition. The minute that she sees Frank Butler, however, she 100 percent fallen in love with him.

[47:10] Klea Blackhurst: Right.

[47:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. He agrees to beat her because, of course, a woman's not going to beat him. But as it happened in real life, she did. He misses a shot and she wins. I want to say one thing about the production. It's a very, very famous thing.

[47:23] Klea Blackhurst: Yes, please.

[47:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: When Ethel Merman first sees Ray Middleton.

[47:29] Klea Blackhurst: Right, Frank Butler.

[47:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You'll find this referenced a lot of places. It was called the goon look. And she sees him and just drops her jaw as wide as it can go and sort of let her whole body go. And it got a huge, huge, huge response. And she would hold it for a really long time. And it would just the waves of laughter, which is even more.

[47:43] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, I love I love when you read stuff like that because you're like, you know, it's like, oh, that's comic brilliance. It's like it actually was comic brilliance.

[47:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[47:50] Klea Blackhurst: So the goon look, you'll find it in Josh Logan's book. And it's referenced quite a bit. And it's kind of like, yeah, that's a thing. The goon look.

[48:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So yeah, exactly. Exactly. Without the horn.

[48:03] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, right. But I stopped you. That was like a production thing, not a story thing.

[48:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, I love that.

[48:09] Klea Blackhurst: So when Frank and Annie have this opportunity to connect, Frank begins to tell her about the kind of woman that he would love to marry. And she is all pink and roses and gardenias in her hair and perfume water, everything that Annie Oakley isn't. And it kind of breaks her heart because she's madly in love with him and realizes that she's not his type, which leads her to sing, You Can't Get A Man With A Gun.

[48:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Which is a great song.

[48:33] Klea Blackhurst: I mean, great song. Irving Berlin, once again, just hitting them out of the ballpark. Has there ever been a better lyric than a man may be hot, but he's not when he's shot? It's fantastic. All three or four.

[48:43] Klea Blackhurst: I just sang this recently on a Broadway program. You can't shoot a male in the tail like a quail. I can't remember the third one, but they're all fantastic.

[48:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And it's fun when you perform it now. This was a show, Bravo Broadway, that I do with my friend Scott Coulter. And it had two other women, Jessica Hendy and Kelly Rapke. And they really corner that market.

[49:02] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, she's great.

[49:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They corner the market kind of on that wicked, defying gravity kind of singing that is singing I am not capable of. I would never...

[49:09] Klea Blackhurst: No, I just wouldn't be able to do it.

[49:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It wouldn't be possible.

[49:12] Klea Blackhurst: And so what I had to contribute was kind of this golden age sound. And it's fun to kind of like wind it, kind of bring it back down to like music from the 40s. And to have people just enjoying the sound of, oh, my mother was frightened by a shotgun, they say. You know, just that kind of piercing what it was that Ethel Merman had. And listen to them really laugh at those lyrics for just how clever they are, you know.

[49:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And it's not about...

[49:31] Klea Blackhurst: It really has no pyrotechnics. It doesn't go higher than...

[49:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's not difficult to sing.

[49:35] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, no gymnastics.

[49:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's difficult to remember.

[49:37] Klea Blackhurst: Oh, that's a good point.

[49:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But not difficult to sing.

[49:39] Klea Blackhurst: Right, right. So they're a blast. I find people really enjoy them because most of what we're hearing, you know, most of what's popular now or what opens now are not things that have an A, A, B, A form for the song or... I mean, they do have a form. I'm not... And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it.

[49:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, no, no, no.

[49:57] Klea Blackhurst: But they are not this kind of song.

[49:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it's not... You know, and I think in my being at the opera festival twice, once with Annie Get Your Gun and 2019 with Showboat, I think what's important among the two kinds of singers, musical theater singers, especially golden age stuff and opera, is we have to remember to speak of them as an aesthetic difference, not a moral difference. An operatic soprano is not morally superior to a belter. And being able to do high notes is not morally superior to excelling at low notes. That's my two cents for the day.

[51:36] Klea Blackhurst: That's the main difference. Otherwise, you start getting into like, no, and you start forming this sort of political bond against the two where they don't meet. I don't really think opera and musical theater are related, but I think they live on the same street and we need to keep their property values up so both are valuable and supported. That's kind of...

[52:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh, Klea for president.

[52:02] Klea Blackhurst: I've learned to address...

[52:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: This is great.

[52:04] Klea Blackhurst: This is what I've learned to address as a belter and not get defensive when challenged about this because I had a high school teacher who wouldn't let me play Mame unless my parents agreed to have me take voice lessons because he said she will not have a voice when she's 40.

[52:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh yeah, she's going to hurt herself.

[52:20] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, and so it came from a place of love, but no, there's a proper way to do this stuff.

[52:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly.

[52:28] Klea Blackhurst: Now, Annie joins Colonel Buffalo Bill's show. Yeah, all of the men encourage her to do so, including Frank Butler, much to, I guess, everybody's surprise and much to her great excitement. So she joins, she takes the kids along. And speaking of belting, one of my favorite songs coming up, Moonshine Lullaby. It's beautiful. It's just lovely. And you know, this song never got any airplay. At the time, it was not a hit from the show because it was talking about alcohol and Moonshine was illicit alcohol.

[53:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Of course.

[53:03] Klea Blackhurst: And so that kept it off the radio.

[53:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh, I hadn't even thought of this, right.

[53:06] Klea Blackhurst: We look at something like that now and we're like, you're freaking kidding me, right? Yeah, child's play, who cares? No, everything else was a hit. Well, one of the other reasons I'm kind of obsessed with the song is because it is a lullaby, but when you listen to Ethel Merman sing it, nobody's falling asleep. Like, who are we kidding?

[53:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, that's another thing I want to point out to you is if you compare, depends on which recording you grew up with, if you listen to the 1946 recording, none of what's present on the 1966 recording is there. In other words, it's still clarion, but it hasn't become a tick yet. So it might be, for example, they say that falling in love is wonderful. She goes to the end, but in the 1966, they say that falling in love is wonderful.

[53:59] Klea Blackhurst: Oh my gosh, right.

[54:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right, it's like the vocal equivalent of a bodybuilder. It's just been being built and built. So it's a little bit grotesque by 66. And so I always advocate for the 46 because those things that you think are there are not there. So give that a spin, if you will.

[54:19] Klea Blackhurst: I totally will. But yes.

[54:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now you just sang the refrain of the next gorgeous song that's coming up. They say it's wonderful. I mean, a beautiful, beautiful song. And it all comes about because Annie is trying to play Frank's game. She is trying to convince him that she is the type of girl that he says he likes.

[54:33] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, doesn't she put on toilet water and like gets her fingernails done or something?

[54:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I can't remember what the things are that she tries to like.

[54:39] Klea Blackhurst: Cleans those nails.

[54:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You know what'll really get this guy? Cologne.

[54:42] Klea Blackhurst: Toilet water.

[54:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Toilet water.

[54:44] Klea Blackhurst: Toilet water will do it. Let's just take a bath in that toilet water and call it a day. What's wonderful about Annie though is that even though she tries these certain things, she just can't help but be herself.

[55:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly.

[55:04] Klea Blackhurst: She is just unapologetically Annie. And I think it is what makes everybody fall in love with her. She can't help it.

[55:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[55:14] Klea Blackhurst: Now, in addition to this romance that's kind of budding and blooming, we have the romance between Tommy and Winnie that is full steam ahead. Pardon the pun, because their first song together is a song called I'll Share It All With You that's on a train.

[55:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[55:30] Klea Blackhurst: I'm going to go quickly through their story because to be perfectly honest, I could take it or leave it. But in the second act, they do have this adorable song called Who Do You Love I Hope, which is so, so sweet. It's, you know, your typical young ingenue romance, except for the fact that underneath it all is this interesting backstory of race relations. Now, Frank, like we said, Annie is irresistible, and he finally has a moment to collect himself and realize, oh, I may be falling for this woman. And he sings My Defenses Are Down.

[56:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Great song.

[56:07] Klea Blackhurst: Shout out to John McDaniel, fantastic music director who came up with this really jazzy, almost Bob Fosse-like dance arrangement for this song. I always really loved performing it in my chaps. But this moment of self-realization is interrupted by his ego. Why? Because Colonel Buffalo Bill's show is in financial trouble. And so who's going to save it? Not Frank Butler, but Annie Oakley, which therefore makes him...

[56:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Man.

[56:40] Klea Blackhurst: Just man.

[56:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's what we do in musical theater. We simplify.

[56:43] Klea Blackhurst: Bring it down.

[56:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: He's very man.

[56:46] Klea Blackhurst: He's very man. And so he leaves. He leaves the Colonel Buffalo Bill's show for Pawnee Bill's show, who is the big competitor. And that's how the first act ends, is Annie's heart broken, and she sings a sad reprise of You Can't Get a Man With a Gun. Now it's intermission, and we are going to play a game that I have created especially for you, Miss Klea Blackhurst. It is called Merman or Mormon. Now you are raised in the Salt Lake Valley, and you are a Merman specialist. So I thought it would be fun if I read a series of quotes, and then you tell me if the quote is from Ethel Merman or from the Book of Mormon.

[57:25] Klea Blackhurst: Oh, wow. Book, not musical.

[57:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, wow. Okay, let me see how I do.

[57:28] Klea Blackhurst: You're going to be great. It's like riding a bicycle. Okay, here we go.

[57:53] Klea Blackhurst: The only things I read are gossip columns. If someone gives me a book, it'd better have a lot of pictures.

[57:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I can't believe this. Maybe this is easier than I thought. I don't know.

[58:05] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, that's from her autobiography, Merman. Her first autobiography was called, Who Could Ask for Anything More? And then apparently somebody did because about 20 years later she wrote Merman. But when I read that, it's in the beginning, it's in the early pages, and I had to put the book down. I was so disappointed in her. I just thought, I was so sad that she wasn't a reader. I was like, okay, it's interesting what breaks a little historian's heart, you know, in seventh grade. I'm like, no, she doesn't read. But also that tracks, right? I mean, she didn't have time for that. She's doing shorthand. No question. She did not have time for that.

[58:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, next one. Here we go.

[58:51] Klea Blackhurst: Okay.

[58:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now you may suppose that this is foolishness in me, but behold, I say unto you that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass, and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

[59:04] Klea Blackhurst: Wow. I mean, she's not really thinking outside the box. And so I'm going to let that be Moroni or Nephi or somebody.

[59:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. I think, ding, ding, ding, you're right. Oh my gosh, you are so good at this game. I think we're definitely in like an Alma or Mosiah type situation here. All right, next one. Legend has it that when God created me, he gave me a big distinctive voice, a lot of boldness and no heart. Why would she say that?

[59:34] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, I'm going to make that from the first autobiography. Who could ask for anything more? Ethel Merman.

[59:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow. Okay. Not just Ethel, but you can tell me the book.

[59:44] Klea Blackhurst: I think that's maybe her saying, well, legend has it. I think probably the next paragraph goes on to say, but I got a big heart. I've loved all kinds of goofy men, you know.

[59:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, next one. Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God, and I fear not what man can do. For perfect love casteth out all fear. Oh my gosh, this is just way too easy.

[1:00:09] Klea Blackhurst: It's the opening with behold.

[1:00:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's the behold. That's the thing.

[1:00:13] Klea Blackhurst: I'm pretty sure she never started a sentence with that. Behold.

[1:00:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Unless it's a blow Gabriel, right? Like behold Gabriel.

[1:00:22] Klea Blackhurst: That's true. That's true.

[1:00:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All right, last one. Here we go. At a flea market, I always head to the junk jewelry table first. I mean, that's my favorite quote of all time. I'm pretty sure.

[1:00:35] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah, that's a good one. And I think it happens because she was the victim of a cat burglar who came in when she was at the theater one night and stole all of her good jewelry. And so I think this quote comes from later in her life when she's like, so she didn't replace any of it. She just goes for the junk jewelry. No, it broke her heart. There was some good stuff in that collection. And so she just went with costume jewelry from then on. So I think that's where that comes in.

[1:01:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's what theater's for, right?

[1:01:05] Klea Blackhurst: Who cares? Nobody's going to look close enough anyway.

[1:01:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's going to read to the back of the house. Well, congratulations.

[1:01:10] Klea Blackhurst: Hey, that's really my pleasure.

[1:01:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I mean, truly, you just absolutely slayed Merman or Mormon.

[1:01:15] Klea Blackhurst: Is it a little bit sad that I got kind of nervous at the beginning of the game? Because I was like, oh gosh, I hope he doesn't trip me up, but I'm glad you chose beholds.

[1:01:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was the beholds. They're the tell. 100%. All right, back to the show. Act two begins with the European tour in which Annie visits every country in Europe and is met enthusiastically by their royals with applause and medals.

[1:01:40] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah. Lots and lots of medals that have jewel encrusted.

[1:01:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. They have the jewels in them. It's a big, big success. After this tour, they get on the ship to go back to America. And the ship is called the Titanic. No, I'm just kidding. The Titanic isn't in this one, but Pawnee Bill is on the same ship, his show.

[1:02:07] Klea Blackhurst: Real competitors.

[1:02:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And that means Frank Butler. So lo and behold, oh, there's behold. Lo and behold, Annie sees Frank and all of those feelings come back. And so she sings, I got lost in his arms.

[1:02:20] Klea Blackhurst: That is a perfect, gorgeous ballad.

[1:02:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It is a perfect song. I mean, the fact that it goes, I mean, just the way that it builds.

[1:02:32] Klea Blackhurst: No, it's a wonderful song.

[1:02:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's textbook songwriting, period. Now, there is going to be this secret meeting on the ship between Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill. And Buffalo Bill is still having money problems even after that super successful European tour. And he hears that Pawnee Bill wants to combine, join forces.

[1:03:02] Klea Blackhurst: Exactly. Join forces. And that sounds like, you know, answer to prayers because they're still having all of these financial problems. What is interesting, though, is that Pawnee Bill is also having money problems and Buffalo Bill doesn't know it. So they come together hoping that the other person will like rescue them. And it turns out nobody has any money, which is there anything more show business than this little plot line?

[1:03:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Who saves the day is once again, Annie Oakley, because she has an entire chest full of medals and jewels. And she is like, all right, well, I will just use all of these jewels to save the show. And there's a big ballroom sequence in which she sings another great hit. I got the sun in the morning, the moon at night. Wonderful, wonderful song that has a great arrangement in this revival has a hoedown. I mean, I'm a Utah farm boy. I love a good hoedown in a musical. And this one has got it. Frank hears about Annie saving the show is super grateful and actually professes his love. She does as well. It's all going to go swell and they're going to have an old fashioned wedding. What a great song.

[1:04:11] Klea Blackhurst: Now this one wasn't necessarily written for Annie Get Your Gun, right? Was it written before or?

[1:04:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, no, what happens is Call Me Madam has a wonderful double song where Ethel Merman and the Young Press attache in that do You're Just in Love, which is you don't need analyzing. And so when Merman had she had such a stop the show moment with You're Just in Love that when they did this 1966 revival, Ethel said to Irving Berlin, can you write another double song? And so he writes old fashioned wedding. I want a wedding in a big church. I mean, I can't picture the show without it.

[1:04:50] Klea Blackhurst: No, me neither. And I will also say that in a very thrilling way, old fashioned wedding. So it's like we'll have an old fashioned wedding is the Frank, the slower one. And then we want a wedding in a big church and then Call Me Madam. I hear singing and there's no one there against. You don't need analyzing. Right. Those two songs go together.

[1:05:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Those two songs to go together. They also all four go together.

[1:05:23] Klea Blackhurst: No. And yes. And if and I've done it a number of times. It's almost like Mozart. I swear to you. Oh my gosh. He put a note. He did patterns. All four patterns will go together. And they're thrilling. And it's so fun to hear him that way. But the double songs on their own are just so much fun and old fashioned wedding. So. So obviously, this 1999 revival would say, you know what? Over the two versions, you got this is one that we definitely have to take and put into anything down the line because it's such it's such an adorable crowd pleaser.

[1:05:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I completely agree. Now, after old fashioned wedding, it seems like everything's going to be fine. But then somebody's feelings get hurt. I wonder who.

[1:06:08] Klea Blackhurst: Poor Frank. It's once again, this battle of the egos where Annie starts, you know, tootin' her own horn and then he wants to toot his and there's too much tootin' and not enough rootin'. So they break it off and decide that they instead they're going to have a shooting match because Annie got lucky and Frank wants to prove that he's the best once and for all.

[1:06:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Colonel Buffalo Bill gets this idea that he is going to mess with Annie's gun because everybody is sick of this at this point.

[1:06:37] Klea Blackhurst: That's right. And if Annie loses, then Frank stays with the show. And they want this merger to go through. They want Comcast NBC Universal to all be a happy family. So they're going to make Annie lose to keep the family together.

[1:06:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The day of the shooting match comes. And right before they start, they have time for one more 11 o'clock number. We know it. We love it. It's called Anything You Can Do. I Can Do Better. They're trying to one up each other. The crowd's loving it. And then they start the shooting match. Annie misses her first shot, which everyone is so surprised by. Frank gets his. And then she thinks, oh, maybe there's something wrong with this gun.

[1:07:15] Klea Blackhurst: Yeah. That's when Chief Sitting Bull takes her aside and says, you know how you've always said you can't get a man with a gun?

[1:07:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And she says, yes.

[1:07:27] Klea Blackhurst: And he says, well, you can get a man with this gun. And she realizes, oh, okay, if I lose this match, I win, Frank. I win because I decide I win. Frank kind of gets wind of this. He doesn't want to win because someone lets him win. And so when it comes time for his shot, he misses his shot on purpose. And now they're both missing their shots.

[1:07:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Realizing that what they actually want is each other, not the match. So it's a tie. And these two are now equals. And that's how it ends.

[1:08:07] Klea Blackhurst: Yep. Well, I mean, yeah, they are equals. It's a tie. Love it.

[1:08:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, that's it's really cute.

[1:08:12] Klea Blackhurst: That's yeah, that's cute. That's totally fine. It's a great update.

[1:08:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's of course, in the original versions, she lets him win and they live happily ever after. So very popular. Revisal of male female relationships is absolutely welcome. And that's sweet.

[1:08:29] Klea Blackhurst: And then they live happily ever after and become the most boring people in the world.

[1:08:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, not before singing a beautiful reprise of They Say It's Wonderful. And we all live happily ever after. It's a great show. Once again, I don't know why I didn't like it, because now when I look back at this work and all of the choices that they made, I totally see why they made all of them. And I love them for it.

[1:08:51] Klea Blackhurst: That I mean, and that often happens, doesn't it? We do something and we're like, oh, but I love it. This is my favorite part in something that we thought was absolutely stupid. I mean, maybe not strong words, but when we get inside of them and we get to live inside of them, a lot of shows that have like, quote unquote, made it over the years, we find something to love about it. And we get kind of proprietary over it.

[1:09:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, and it's one of the reasons why I do this on the show. Sometimes it's difficult to go through all of the plot of these shows. But I always find that when I do, I am left with this feeling of, oh, wow, I guess I love this show. It's really beautiful.

[1:09:30] Klea Blackhurst: That's fantastic. Actually, that speaks to you. That speaks to you and your, like an open heart, right? Because first of all, you push yourself through the experience. And not everybody would choose to go through an experience and come out changed on the other side. I think you should take credit for that.

[1:09:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, thank you. That means a lot to me. And I hope that it means something for other people when they listen to these episodes. Because if we can catch the inspiration of what these people were doing, I mean, I think it's worth it. This is our history. This is our legacy. And now we can make it even more beautiful.

[1:10:09] Klea Blackhurst: That's right.

[1:10:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: As always, if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on a musical theater podcast, you can always email me at amusicalpodcast at gmail.com. Don't forget to follow us on social media on Twitter and Instagram at amusicalpodcast. We also have a Teepublic store where you can buy merchandise like the one I'm wearing now, celebrating the show. Don't forget to subscribe to Patreon! You guys, we're going to have such amazing content this year, including a Sondheim tribute that's coming up in the next couple of weeks, starring original cast members of Merrily We Roll Along. What? It's going to be amazing. More than anything, I just love to connect. Speaking of connection, Clea, how do we connect with you?

[1:10:53] Klea Blackhurst: Oh, well, I have a website. My friend Jim Caruso told me a website is now what a phone number used to be when we started our show. It's cleablackhurst.com, K-L-E-A-B-L-A-C-K-H-U-R-S-T.com. I do have Instagram and Facebook, and I'm challenged with those, but I have somebody helping me now, so hopefully. I hope to have a very busy touring schedule this year, so you can always check out the upcoming performances on the website. I'd love to see anybody there, and I'd love to see anybody who listened to this come over and tell me that that's how we're connected. That would make me very happy.

[1:11:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, well, for everybody who's listening, I have been on the receiving end of the glorious talent that is Clea Blackhurst, so if you have an opportunity to see her, please, please take advantage. Clea, thank you so much for going over this with me. It's been a true joy.

[1:11:53] Klea Blackhurst: My pleasure. Thank you for the invite, and it's been an absolute pleasure.

[1:11:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And to everybody out there, just remember, there's no business like show business.