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[0:13] Andrew Child: Hi, I'm Andrew Child, and welcome to Fifty Key Stage Musicals, the podcast, a companion piece to the Routledge Press publication, Fifty Key Stage Musicals, which is available for purchase by going to Routledge.com or clicking the link below in today's show description.

[0:31] Andrew Child: Today's episode focuses on chapter 7, ANYTHING GOES, and with us today is the author of Fifty Key Stage Musicals, Robert W. Schneider.

[0:40] Robert W. Schneider: Thank you, Andrew.

[0:41] Andrew Child: Professor Schneider holds academic appointments at Penn State University, New York Film Academy, and Mount Union University, as well as serving as the artistic director for the J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company, and as an original programming producer at Feinstein's/54 Below in New York City.

[0:59] Andrew Child: He is the host of the podcasts Behind the Curtain: Broadway's Living Legends, Gay Card Revoked, and This Was a Thing.

[1:08] Andrew Child: For the past 15 years, Robert has been one of the most prolific leaders of online education in the arts. Robert, I'm excited to chat about ANYTHING GOES today.

[1:18] Robert W. Schneider: Thank you, Andrew. And please feel free to call me Rob.

[1:21] Andrew Child: Oh wow. Robert sounds so formal.

[1:23] Robert W. Schneider: It sounds so formal, but we're talking about a formal, sophisticated man today.

[1:27] Andrew Child: So if you want to call me Robert, go for it. We are let's talk about this sophisticated man. So Cole Porter. Before we go into Cole Porter, why is ANYTHING GOES in this book? Why is it a key stage musical?

[1:39] Robert W. Schneider: For me, and I think for Shannon as well, when we were putting and Peter Felicia, who was also helping us put this list together, I think one of the things that ANYTHING GOES does that's really important is it takes the content of a musical and elevates it so it becomes more sophisticated. A lot of the musicals, I think before ANYTHING GOES, put like a large net out and hopes that it talks to as many audiences as possible. Cole Porter, with ANYTHING GOES, on the other hand, says, no, I'm not gonna go down to the lowest common denominator. In fact, I'm gonna raise the bar of intelligence and sophistication, and the audience has to meet me there.

[2:23] Robert W. Schneider: Okay. So I'm not gonna go down to them. And I think, like, for example, if you listen to something like "Tea for Two" from No, No, Nanette, where it's very generic. And I feel like songwriting before ANYTHING GOES, the composer specifically, or the lyricist specifically said, we want to tug at an audience's heartstrings. Cole Porter says, I'm not interested in your heart as much as I am in your mind. I want your brain to be an active part in watching a musical theater piece. I don't know if that was conscious, I don't know if that's what he was thinking of at the time, but I think because of the wit and sophistication and the elevation that he brings to musicals, just about every single musical after that, whether they realize it or not, suddenly goes, oh my god, the audience is smarter than we're giving them credit for.

[3:12] Robert W. Schneider: Okay. They can get a little bit more sophisticated. And when you think of the 1930s, and you think of escapism, I think regardless if you're looking at film or literature or musicals, I think Cole Porter is still like the icon of 1930s escapism. Because so much of his musicals were about we don't have a care in the world, everyone's filthy rich. It's about education, it's about drinking martinis and tuxedos and evening gowns and penthouses, which is something that was then in movies of that time and in literature of that time, but it was really his musicals that I think encapsulated a certain era.

[3:53] Robert W. Schneider: So for me, in terms of musical theater trajectory, the key to me is the fact that he's elevated the art form, specifically of lyrical writing, of lyric writing.

[4:04] Andrew Child: Which all of that makes sense when we look at the chapter in the book. This one is almost like we could call it translation, you know.

[4:13] Robert W. Schneider: Yes, breaks down the lyrics in a really accessible way and an informative way.

[4:19] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah, the great Scott Miller, who wrote the chapter for this for ANYTHING GOES and is a brilliant musical theater writer. He has a great book called Deconstructing Harold Hill, which if you've never read it, I would encourage you to do so. I would encourage everybody to do so. He runs the New Line Theater down in Missouri, he's a brilliant individual. It was his idea to take a song that I think we've heard so often, which is "You're the Top," which is from ANYTHING GOES, and to detail specifically what Porter was trying to achieve that because time has marched on, we sort of have lost track of because we were not familiar with Bendel Bonnets, we were not familiar with, you know, Garbo's salary.

[5:01] Robert W. Schneider: And so the fact that Scott has done such a brilliant job at detailing all of that, I think makes Porter's work even more alive for us today. But you're right, the chapter is interesting because the chapter in the book doesn't necessarily feel like here's the history of ANYTHING GOES, and here's why it was important. It details specifically what Porter brought to musical theater, and this was just the show that he happened to do it on.

[5:27] Andrew Child: So let's talk a little bit about Cole Porter.

[5:31] Robert W. Schneider: Great. The guy and the myth, the legend.

[5:34] Andrew Child: Yeah. So where does he fit into the pop culture that he is so clearly? I don't even know if I want to say infatuated with, but he's concerned with it enough to write all these songs that reference things that we then need to translate decades later.

[5:54] Robert W. Schneider: You know, I think it was very clear that Cole Porter was writing for his friends. Okay. And I think what he was obsessed with, like you said, and I think obsessed is a very good word, is with intelligence, with wit, with sophistication, with romanticism, with luxury. And I think that because he was able to articulate it in a way that made people stand up and listen and go, what exactly is he trying to articulate? Which was so different than composers and lyricists at the time, because so many of those composers and lyricists, it was very obvious and sometimes very generic.

[6:31] Robert W. Schneider: And the fact that he was able to pull people up to his level, I think is where he fits into the world of pop culture because he's celebrating pop culture, he's not running away from pop culture. The fact, I mean, if you look at something like "You're the Top," Garbo's salary, a Berlin ballad, the fact that he loved Irving Berlin and everyone loved Irving Berlin. Right. I mean, this is a guy that has his finger on the pulse, and it's a pulse that a lot of people wish they could have, but economically they cannot. So they aspire to sort of be in his circle.

[7:03] Robert W. Schneider: So, in a lot of ways, even though he's talking about pop culture, he's sort of crystallizing for everybody. This is what becomes part of pop culture because I'm putting it in my music.

[7:15] Andrew Child: Okay.

[7:17] Robert W. Schneider: So, you know, yes, a Berlin ballad is great, but once it gets Cole Porter's seal of approval, it sort of elevates Irving Berlin ballad, if that makes sense.

[7:26] Andrew Child: Okay.

[7:27] Robert W. Schneider: But it is, it's he's sort of like the anti "We Didn't Start the Fire."

[7:33] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[7:33] Robert W. Schneider: Because in a way, that almost feels like it has a perspective on everything it's listing, whether it's positive or negative.

[7:42] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[7:43] Robert W. Schneider: Or "La Vie Bohème" even feels like it has a perspective, whereas this, I don't know, it's different.

[7:50] Andrew Child: Well, I think that I mean, if you're talking about like list songs specifically, which is sort of what his big claim to fame was.

[7:57] Robert W. Schneider: A list song to me is like a mosaic, in which you see all the tiny little pieces lyrically as they're going by you, but then when you step back, you get the whole picture because you look at all the things that were mentioned in the list and you go, ah, this is the point of view on it.

[8:14] Robert W. Schneider: I think his point of view, if there was one, is this idea of sophistication, this idea of wealth, this idea of there's a classy world out there and I'm a part of it.

[8:28] Andrew Child: And he was, he was very well.

[8:30] Robert W. Schneider: Very much a part of it. Oh, he was, yeah. I mean, if we want to talk a little bit about Cole Porter, because this is the only time he comes up in the book, which is I mean, but I'd say is a little crazy, but also in the defense of that, you know, we've got one Rodgers and Hammerstein show in the book. You know, there's a few Sondheim shows, you know, you can't do more than one.

[8:50] Robert W. Schneider: And this might be, you know, and I'm so curious because I'm sure listeners and readers will have a more vocal reaction to this than I do, which is, you know, when you look at Cole Porter's work, yes, the works are great, but it's really his songs that stand out. The books are not very strong. Except I think ANYTHING GOES and Kiss Me, Kate both have the strong books.

[9:12] Robert W. Schneider: And I think that's why they've survived. Obviously, those are the two shows if you're gonna do Cole Porter. As much as I love something like Paris, which was one of his first breakout hits musicals in 1928, or something like Silk Stockings, which comes out a little bit later on in his life. Those two are the biggest. But my feeling is if you have to go, what's the key musical between the two of them? I don't think you would have had Kiss Me, Kate if you had not had ANYTHING GOES.

[9:39] Andrew Child: Okay.

[9:39] Robert W. Schneider: So that's why ANYTHING GOES is the one Porter musical that we've decided to put in here, as opposed to Kiss Me, Kate. Kiss Me, Kate's interesting because it has such an interesting structure, which is most 80 to 90% of that show plays in real time because at the same time the show within the show is going on. We also then go to the backstage and see what's happening behind the scenes. That's a very revolutionary and interesting structural trick.

[10:10] Robert W. Schneider: But it's still the it's we're talking about wit and sophistication and elevating an audience's sensibilities, and I think ANYTHING GOES does that better. So Cole Porter, yeah, he was he was born in Indiana.

[10:22] Robert W. Schneider: His family was incredibly wealthy. He was musical from a very, very early time. He moved over to Europe, he lived in France for a long time. And he was able to never worry about money. That was never a concern for him. So because of that, he was able to pay for education. He was able to take walking tours of France and go to museums and collect and absorb all of that information.

[10:47] Andrew Child: It's interesting because when you look at people like Irving Berlin, or you look at somebody like Lorenz Hart or a Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, they have such an interesting point of view on the world, which is they're trying to keep everything as optimistic as possible, as generic as possible.

[11:06] Robert W. Schneider: And I when I say generic, I'm talking about emotion and using lyrics and using vocabulary that isn't necessarily alienating anybody. I don't think I feel like with Cole Porter, you might want to have like a dictionary nearby as you go through his songs. I don't think you necessarily need that for somebody like Irving Berlin. It doesn't mean that one is better, one is worse.

[11:28] Robert W. Schneider: But while Irving Berlin is trying to appeal, like I said, to people's hearts and to the masses, Porter is like, no, I'm playing on my own terms, because all I know is my community, and my community is rich educated people.

[11:39] Andrew Child: Okay.

[11:40] Andrew Child: Do you think that Cole Porter, as a writer, as an author, did he have an effect on musical theater outside of you know the works that we kind of talked about, or did he have an effect sort of on the construction of celebrity with this persona?

[12:01] Robert W. Schneider: I think both. I mean, I think to answer the first part of your question, which is yeah, I think it will be you'd be hard pressed to find a lyricist who at some point has not tried to emulate Cole Porter. And I think the greatest lyricist of musical theater is Stephen Sondheim. And he said one of the greatest thrills in his life was when he played "Together Wherever We Go" from Gypsy for Cole Porter for the first time.

[12:23] Andrew Child: Wow.

[12:24] Robert W. Schneider: Because apparently Cole Porter laughed very loud on, what is it, no fists, no fights, no feuds, no egos, amigos.

[12:31] Andrew Child: Okay.

[12:32] Robert W. Schneider: And it's a good lyric. It's a great lyric. But the fact that Stephen Sondheim was like, oh my god, Cole Porter validated me. I think every lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Richard Maltby, Lorenz Hart, um Lorenz Hart, I don't maybe in some ways, um, Jonathan Larson, Lin Manuel Miranda.

[12:51] Robert W. Schneider: I mean, Lynn Manuel Miranda mentions Cole Porter specifically at the top of In the Heights. So, yes, so I think everyone knows when you when it comes to lyrics, this is the guy because he brought in such a sophisticated vocabulary, but also brought in other languages. Brought in, you know, uh Spanish vocabulary, French vocabulary, using Spanish words and French words in order to fit a rhyme, which I don't think had really been done before. So that's that's that, and yes, in the term of celebrity, yeah, I think because what he personified was what everybody in the Great Depression wanted, which is somebody who did not have a care in the world. Cole Porter never had to worry about where his next meal was gonna come from.

Cole Porter never had to worry about am I gonna be able to pay the rent. And that's something I think in the 1930s, audiences really felt they wanted some sort of escapism, they wanted to have not a care in the world, and he was exemplifying that for them, which is why I think so many of those screwball comedy. I I call this era the champagne era, the shame the champagne era of musicals, where it was about Woody sophisticated individuals, and I think because he was so prominent and successful at that, yes, he became a celebrity, but he also became the celebrity that sort of validated other celebrities. Okay. And validated this is what's in, this is what's out, this is what you should be looking at, this is what you shouldn't be looking at, even giving things opinions, you know, even dismissing something, um, or or praising something, like for like for example, like Whistler's Mother, obviously that from Porter's point of view, that's a compliment.

Um painting very vivid pictures of what excitement could be like I get a kick out of you. Flying too high with some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do. I mean, he takes you on a journey that you wish you could afford to go on. Okay.

[14:44] Andrew Child: Yeah. So let's change topics a little bit. Let's talk Ethel Merman.

[14:50] Robert W. Schneider: Ah! Do we have it? Do we let's do it, let's fall in love. Let's do it, let's fall in love. Do we care about anything goes? Does that have anything to do with the fact that Ethel Merman originated Reno Sweeney?

[15:06] Andrew Child: So I think, oh my god. I think the a big success of and anything goes if we can, yeah. Well, anything goes was done actually in almost reverse engineering of how musicals were created back then.

[15:19] Robert W. Schneider: Oh wow.

[15:20] Andrew Child: Which is that most often at this time, producers would uh get a story that they wanted to do, raise the money, and then go after the writers, go after the cast, because they were for the money. Vinton Friedley, who was the producer of this show, went in the reverse way, which is he brought on Ethel Merman, he brought on William Gaxton, he brought on Victor Moore, and he brought on Cole Porter.

[15:46] Robert W. Schneider: Great.

[15:46] Andrew Child: And then said, now let's go get money. So, yeah. So, so Merman was a huge get for them. And the fact that she had the loudest voice and one of the greatest voices in musical theater. Um, she introduced in this show, anything goes. She introduced You're the Top. She introduced I Get a Kick Out of You. And the list goes on and on and on and on. So the fact that a Blow Gabriel Blow, I'm sorry, that was the fourth one I wanted to mention. Um her power knocked these songs out of the park. It's a perfect storm. You have one of the most brilliant performers, and you have one of the most brilliant lyricists coming together and creating something really magical.

[16:31] Robert W. Schneider: If I'm gonna be honest with you, if it wasn't Ethel Merman, I do not know how successful I think the show would have been successful, but I think there was something about her, her star power, her magnetism, and a role that was really tailored for her. Because Lindsay and Krause were very smart in going, okay, we know who this character is, but how can we write it in a way that strengths that that really plays to Ethel Merman's strengths?

[17:02] Andrew Child: Okay, which had not really been done before.

[17:05] Robert W. Schneider: And what I mean by that is is they knew well, other composers who had worked with her go, well, she's loud, so we'll give her loud songs. This was the first time they were going, yeah, but what is she doing when she's not singing? What's that personality like when she's not singing? Okay, and they were and for lack of a better term, they go, This is a broad. That's how they looked at her. Was she this is a broad. This is like when you think of that image in your head, that's who Ethel Merman is. So let's use that throughout the show. And it really started to craft her persona. And in fact, Ethel Merman then became almost Cole Porter's muse in a way because he wrote other shows for her as time went on.

[17:40] Andrew Child: Okay.

[17:41] Robert W. Schneider: She loved him, he loved her, all was great. So yeah, I think her being involved in this and the fact that she's singing the best songs in the show, I think went a long, long way.

[17:52] Andrew Child: Okay. Do you think now we've got this long roster of iconic women who have played Reno Sweeney?

[18:01] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah, Reno has to be the salt of the earth. Reno has to be incredibly grounded. Re Reno is the one who sort of sits there and observes everything and goes, Isn't this fucking silly? Isn't this weird? Um, or isn't this fun? Isn't this great? But she has to have such an automatic connection with us in the audience. Lindsay and Krause used Amy Simple McPherson as an inspiration for this character. And I think you need that, you need to be a zealot in which we believe it as an audience.

[18:32] Andrew Child: Okay.

[18:32] Robert W. Schneider: And I think that's what Merman was able to do because she was so grounded and so powerful. That's what I think you need. And I think that's why Patty Lapone was very successful when she did it.

[18:42] Andrew Child: Well, she's loud.

[18:43] Robert W. Schneider: There you go. She is, she is loud. And I also think Sudden Foster was successful when she did it. Did you see either of those?

[18:49] Andrew Child: I did.

[18:51] Robert W. Schneider: Okay. Yeah, well, actually, I should go back. I saw the the Lincoln Center archive of anything goes with Patty Lapone, but then actually saw the Sutton Foster uh version. Yeah, I you need someone that the audience is gonna go. I like them and I believe them.

[19:05] Andrew Child: Okay, yeah.

[19:06] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah. So I think as soon as you don't have that, you're kind of not in in a good place. A lot of these 30 shows, and I think what makes them hard, because I think it's a trait that we're kind of losing, is you have to have charming performers. Um, and I think today's style of comedy, and this isn't a this isn't negative at all, is it's very dry, it's very um cynical, it's very uh over it, jaded, and I think that sort of personality, it's very hard, I think, to find charming performers today, and performers that's they're not giving you a Meisner class, but like that they come on stage and you genuinely are charmed by them. And that, and I think that's what makes this show probably harder to produce as time goes on, because I think I don't think the script suffers, I don't think the score suffers. I think that extra element that Merman brought to it. I don't know if that's still there so much anymore.

[20:03] Andrew Child: We'd love to have seen Bette Midler play the role at some point.

[20:05] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah, why is that?

[20:07] Andrew Child: Because I think that would be a perfect casting opportunity.

[20:10] Robert W. Schneider: There's someone who's a quote unquote broad, there's someone who can is so incredibly charming. Uh and no, and you want to look at Reno and go, okay, she's gonna take care of everything. Yeah, you look at Bet Miller and go, got it. She's gay.

[20:23] Andrew Child: Yeah, I would love to see her do it.

[20:25] Robert W. Schneider: And she's loud.

[20:25] Andrew Child: And she's loud.

[20:26] Robert W. Schneider: That's really what the whole show is about. It's just about anything goes, including your eardrums.

[20:31] Andrew Child: Be nice and loud.

[20:32] Robert W. Schneider: Do you think I this is kind of out of nowhere? I didn't realize that the character was based on Amy Simple McPherson.

[20:38] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[20:39] Robert W. Schneider: Um we don't talk about in the book uh Amy Simple McPherson's musical scandalous scandalous.

[20:46] Andrew Child: Um Kathy Lee Gifford musical scandalous.

[20:49] Robert W. Schneider: There we go. Is I don't know. Does anything goes have anything to do with that? Where we kind of like, we don't need to see this on stage, we've already seen Reno.

[20:58] Andrew Child: Oh.

[20:59] Robert W. Schneider: Or no, no, they're two totally separate things.

[21:01] Andrew Child: They're two totally separate things.

[21:03] Robert W. Schneider: Um, the the idea that Reno is a female evangelist. Okay, that's pretty much where the lines end between Reno Sweeney and Amy Semple McPherson.

[21:13] Andrew Child: Okay.

[21:14] Robert W. Schneider: So, yes, I think Amy Simple McPherson's life was probably a million times more interesting than Reno Sweeney's life. I I think it would make a great musical someday. I don't know if Scandalous just happened to be that musical.

[21:26] Andrew Child: Yeah, but I think there's stuff there.

[21:27] Robert W. Schneider: Got it. But a great to have seen Ethel Merman play it too.

[21:29] Andrew Child: Oh, absolutely.

[21:30] Robert W. Schneider: Or Bet Midler.

[21:31] Andrew Child: Or Bet Medler, you know.

[21:32] Robert W. Schneider: Or Bet Medler.

[21:33] Andrew Child: Do you think that we will continue seeing anything goes produced, revived?

[21:41] Robert W. Schneider: A hundred and ten percent. The story is a rare story from the 1930s, which is the book works.

[21:47] Andrew Child: Okay.

[21:48] Robert W. Schneider: The book at which is I mean, we we've talked about this before, but you know, back then the idea was simply what are the most what are the greatest songs we can get out of this show? And then we'll write a story loosely around it. Uh-huh. Lindsay and Kraus elevated this book. And then over time, Lindsay and Krause came back to the book in 1962 to fiddle with it. Then John Wideman fiddled with it in 1987. And by fiddling with it, I mean it's just literally getting tighter and tighter and tighter, but it's already in really good shape to begin with. So I think because the story is so strong, you'll see this show more than any other show, I think, from the 1930s.

[22:30] Andrew Child: Okay.

[22:30] Robert W. Schneider: As time goes on.

[22:32] Andrew Child: Okay.

[22:33] Robert W. Schneider: Anything goes was the second longest running book musical of the 1930s.

[22:37] Andrew Child: Wow.

[22:38] Robert W. Schneider: The first was of The I Sing. I don't think we see of the I Sing anymore so much because what it was satirizing, I hate to say, I don't want to sound jaded, but like what's going on in the world today, you couldn't make that up.

[22:52] Andrew Child: Right.

[22:52] Robert W. Schneider: Do you know what I mean? So I think of the I Sing now seems very tame. But anything goes has a structure that still works. A boy loves a girl. They're being told they can't be together because of economic differences. There's a brassy better who's gonna help put them together. It's on a beautiful boat. Um, it's got really funny characters. And one of the things I think that was so good was Lindsay and Krause took what Bolton and Wodehouse created and literally fleshed it out. Uh and because of that, they actually were able to make characters that were funny and interesting and that contemporary audiences can still latch on to.

[23:35] Andrew Child: Okay.

[23:37] Robert W. Schneider: They uh Lindsay and Krause made it feel like a story. If you look at the outline that, because I don't know if people know this, but the the what had happened was Vinton Friedley hired Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse to write the story of anything goes, to write the script of it. Um he wasn't satisfied with what they came up with.

[23:59] Andrew Child: Okay.

[24:00] Robert W. Schneider: And by the time it was ready to go into rehearsal, he was like, I can't really use this script. Let me give this to Lindsay and Krauss. And what had happened was Guy Bolton would structure the show. So he would write down this happens and this happens and this happens, and then PG Wodehouse would flesh it out. But it never really got fleshed out, it was still two dimensional. So he was like, I don't want to use them again. He really couldn't use them again because they were already work, they were in London, they were already in another gig.

[24:28] Andrew Child: Okay.

[24:29] Robert W. Schneider: So he asked uh uh Howard Lindsay and Russell Krause to take over. Howard Lindsay was um the um uh a director, and he had worked, he wanted to work with Russell Krause, uh, who was a press agent. And so the two of them came together and they created a really unique, wonderful book for anything goes. So yeah, I think that's why we'll still see it today.

[24:53] Andrew Child: I hope that answered the question.

[24:54] Robert W. Schneider: No, absolutely. Yeah, which is the fact that they've created something that still works. Plus that score.

[25:01] Andrew Child: Right.

[25:02] Robert W. Schneider: That score, it can still send shivers down your spine. Listening to someone belt blow Gabriel Blow. Best song in the show. Anything goes, a list song in itself in some ways, is also incredibly funny. And even though the things that they're talking about might seem tame by today's standards, we still get the joke.

[25:24] Robert W. Schneider: It's so funny. What I find so interesting is like when you watch a number like "You're the Top," which is filled with so many contemporary at that time references, audiences still latch on to it. Because yeah, they'll know some of the references like Mickey Mouse or Fred Astaire, but they're also watching two characters try to cheer one another up, and that's timeless. That none of the songs in ANYTHING GOES feel like they come out of thin air, which is what happened so often in 20s and 30s musicals. You'd be like, what the fuck's happening? Why are they singing now? Flappers are we. And in ANYTHING GOES, you never feel that. Okay. I don't think you ever feel that. And I think over time, like I said, Lindsay and Crouse as musical theater sort of moved along and got more sophisticated book wise.

I think they went back and peeled away anything that might have felt obtrusive. But there was very little of that because they were already in pretty good shape. The other story with Bolton and Wodehouse, which some people really can't prove is the original story of ANYTHING GOES involved a shipwreck. Okay. And right before they were about to go into rehearsal, uh, there was a fire on an actual cruise ship, and like 135 people lost their lives. So the story always was that Vinton Friedley was like, I don't want to use this plot anymore, and that's why I need these guys to rewrite it. Okay. At the end of the day, it seems that he was just not happy with their work, and the fire was coincidental.

But sort of this is very tangential in a musical we don't talk about in this book, but sort of the opposite when we look at Lindsay and Crouse's work on The Sound of Music. Oh, yeah. And this was the first collaboration between these. Oh, really? Yeah, they had never worked together before. And look at what, like you said, what it gave Sound of Music is a fantastic example. But that one starts as a play. Yes. We're gonna bring in Rogers and Hammerstein to maybe write a song or two for this play. And now who cares about the book, you know? Like, you know, it's all about that music. It's The Sound of Music. But these songs, so popular. I actually heard, you're not gonna believe me, but I did hear uh Louis Armstrong's "You're the Top" in the grocery store.

Did you really? Yeah. The songs of his, they don't go away. They don't go away because he captured something timeless, and I think because he was so into wit and so into sophistication, that never goes out of style. And you know, there was a contemporary album, I think, where modern singers, like, you know, went through and did Cole Porter's songbook. You know, Lady Gaga gravitates towards it, uh Michael Bublé gravitates towards it. It does his ability to communicate in such a fun way and in a subversive way. That's the other thing. He's kind of cool or lit. Kind of lit, as the kids would say. He's lit. Um because he's thumbing his nose at the establishment. He wants to be a part of the establishment, but he's thumbing his nose at it and is saying, Yeah, people have sex, we'll talk about that.

Yes, people will talk in coded language because they're not allowed to love who they're so they want to love. Um, and that doesn't go away. That doesn't go away. It's fun, it's fun for us. And and to still hear. I remember when I saw Bullets Over Broadway, um, when uh two of the characters sang, "Let's Misbehave." And it was a song that it's a Cole Porter song, but not a lot of people I think in that audience were familiar with that song because they were on the younger side. They found it hysterical. They found it hysterical. I still you can watch people still sing today, "Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, let's do it, let's fall in love." It's funny in 2022, and I'm sure it was funny in 1922.

Or 1928, I think. Let's talk about a joke that's still funny, is gonna be funny till the end of time. Is um "Kiss Me, Kate," dick, dick, dick, dick. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's hysterical. Yeah, and and people still laugh at it today. You still laugh at it. Uh that was the other thing he brought to this. He brought sex, which is a lot of musicals at this time. It was about love, and it was about I love you, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with you. And Cole Porter said, Yeah, but people also have sex, and so let's let's talk about that. Do you in coded ways? Not to you know, totally put a damper on how lit Mr. Porter was. Do you think is there a larger conversation here about Cole Porter, like trailblazing for queerness within musical theater?

Yeah, because he was able to write in much like Lorenz Hart's way, which is it was coded, which was he was if you were in the audience and you were a gay person, you knew exactly what he was talking about. Because a lot of the a lot of his most effective songs, and also Lorenz Hart's most effective songs, I think, are about love that's gone away or love that cannot happen. And I think for a heterosexual audience, they go, Well, it can't happen for you know this reason and that reason, but if you're a queer person and you're hearing it, you know exactly what he's talking about. You know that society is the one that's saying that you guys can't be together, and I think that probably comforted a lot of queer individuals who were seeing these shows who were thinking probably before they went in, I'm you know, I'm alone, nobody understands what I'm going through, nobody gets it, and there's a character singing it.

Yes, it's a cisgender character, yes, it's a heteronormative character, but the language is coded in such a way that makes you as a queer person in the audience go, I think he's talking about me. I think he's talking about me, and I think, yes, you can draw a line from like Noel Coward and Cole Porter to any sort of queer musicals that we have today, yeah. Do you think that and this is a tough one because he did something so specific, and we're talking about such specificity here with him. Do you think we have contemporary artists who are sort of picking up this mantle and carrying on sort of the legacy of Cole Porter? In terms of wit and sophistication? In terms of anything, yeah. Or queerness.

Um, you know what? I I am hard pressed to find one, except maybe David Yazbek. I might I might put David Yazbek in this category. The only reason I'm saying that is because one of the things I think is so interesting about Cole Porter, like we were talking about, is this idea that he has to code what his message is. And I think in this day and age, because of the work that he laid and Lorenz Hart laid and Noel Coward laid, um, you don't have to code anymore. It's out there. You know, we don't need to do a musical where someone's hinting about being gay. You can now have a whole musical where someone is gay and no one's and no one bats an eye at it. Um, but in terms of sophistication and wit, I would say the closest I think is David Yazbek.

Okay. Um I think for me, there's something about his writing style that to me is reminiscent of Cole Porter. There's an attempt at being sophisticated. Um, and I think like if you listen, I like if you listen to something like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, okay, I feel like that leans very heavily into the world of Cole Porter. Um I think there are also elements of The Band's Visit that has that intelligence. We're talking about intelligence, intelligence, and this idea of an elevated language. Nowadays, a lot of songwriters, I think, are trying to write in the common vernacular because that's what musicals are supposed to be now. But with Yazbek, I feel like there's a sort of elevation that Cole Porter has, which is you need to listen.

You can't just wait for someone to riff. Yeah, yearning for Omar Sharif is a very kind of who's he? Absolutely, absolutely. Or "Give Them What They Want," which is the opening number of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Okay. That also has a Porter-like sophistication to it. Great big stuff is basically, I mean, it is a list song. Uh-huh. And that's, I mean, that's the other thing that, and this is what the chapter is covering, is the big thing that Porter really brought to the forefront was this idea of a list song. This idea that you could have a song that wasn't necessarily all about flowers and images and visualization. It was just naming a list of items, and that list of items has a collective whole emotional feeling for the audience.

Which I guess is a great continuation of an earlier chapter, an earlier interview where we talk about Gilbert and Sullivan sort of pioneering the patter song. Yes, and the Gilbert and Sullivan with the patter song, I think what makes them a little, I think where Cole Porter moved the needle a little bit, was in those patter songs, and please correct me if I'm wrong, they're funny, but they're funny about the character. Um, it's about the characters' idiosyncrasies, like in "Modern Major General," like the square of the hypotenuse and all that stuff. Um, that's all about that individual. What Cole Porter is doing is he's like, let me bring in society and pop culture. Let me bring that into it.

Okay. To show examples of things. Because then the audience gets a bigger laugh out of it because they go, Oh my gosh, we were just talking about Garbo's salary before we we got to the theater today, right? Or we're laughing about the pants on a Roxy Usher. You know, so there's all those things that are there, and I think that's the way patter songs have now gone. Because when you look at patter songs, not I'm sorry, list songs. I'm sorry, list songs. When you look at list songs now, it's really all contemporary references or contemporary at the time. Like I think a really great, I think one of the best list songs um is "I Want It All" from Baby. Okay. Because it's these three women, and they uh go through as many pioneering women as possible to say that's who they want to be in their life.

They're not talking about like they go, I want to be, what is it? I want to be Donna Summer, Donna McKechnie, Donna Reed. They don't talk about Donna Summers' musical ability, they don't talk about Donna McKechney's dance talent, they just say the name. And the name automatically for us as an audience triggers, oh, that's the kind of person they want to be. Okay. Which is, I think a totally different way of doing a list song. Gilbert and Sullivan spells it out for you. This is who I am, this is what I do. Or doesn't spell it out to you just sort of like the opposite, but in such a way that, you know, when we do The Mikado now, one of the big things is needing to rewrite the um a more humane Mikado where he's listing who he's gonna punish.

Yes, yeah. It's and so not funny because it's so specific to a time. Whereas Cole Porter, we do still get a kickending out of, you know, thank you. And these lists. No, exactly. And I think another big one, a good one, is "La Vie Bohème" from Rent, which is exact the you just have to read one of those verses and you go, I get it. I know exactly who these people are. Um today we were I was talking about this a little bit earlier, pulled from The Addams Family, like in the middle, there's a little uh a little section there. I don't think it does list songs very effectively there, but that's that's my opinion, and I love that score. Um there's other stuff going on there, it's silly. Yeah, and I love that I love that show that's not a knock on the show.

Yeah, um, and then of course, like in pop culture, there's things like "We Didn't Start the Fire," which is the Billy Joel song, which is also you know, a list. It's a list. Um, and it's supposed what it does is in a lot of ways is it makes you bring your own emotional recall to the proceedings. If that makes sense, yep. Which is when he says, you know, uh Joe DiMaggio, you in your mind have an image of who Joe DiMaggio is. You bring you bring that to that moment as opposed to something like "Major General," where he's telling you who he is, and you're being introduced to him. You have no baggage going into it, right? Right, you have no collective memory. But it's I don't know, square of the hypotenuse brings up a lot for some people. I know, and I think we should honor that.

[38:06] Robert W. Schneider: No, you're right, you're right. And I should have we should do a trigger warning that Pythagoreas and theorem would be discussed today. Uh, but yeah, so that's that's I think the other big thing that Porter brings to it is a list of his best list song, probably, in my opinion, is Brush Up Your Shakespeare.

[38:21] Andrew Child: Oh, it's fabulous.

[38:22] Robert W. Schneider: I mean, the genius, the genius on that is is so incredible. Yeah, the fact that he can name so many of Shakespeare's plays, knows when to get the rhyme in, knows when the internal rhyme is gonna work. It's literally a masterpiece. The fact that he got Troilus and Cressida in there, whatever, whatever you want, Cole Porter. That's also some of the fun, I think, of a list song, which is trying to guess who are they gonna mention next? Or who who who are they gonna mention? Who are they gonna leave out? Like I think in La Vivo M, it's fun to hear, you know, to saw and time. Was it to tag to saw on time? It's genius, yeah. It's genius.

[39:00] Robert W. Schneider: This is crazy. You can feel free to cut this part out, but I remember I don't know which one of us it was, but this must have been years ago. One of us had a fun fact about oh, there's only this many people referenced in We Didn't Start the Fire, still alive. And we sat around for like an hour in your apartment, and we did we tried to figure out. Was it trivia question? Yes, I don't remember which one of us like had found it, but it it's fun, you know. It was fun to say, well, Queen Elizabeth is still alive and what the subway gets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the point that we were talking about it. I don't I don't remember what the number was, I don't know if it's still true, but but we bring our collective memories to those things, and that I think is also exciting for an audience. I think that's also something Porter tapped into.

[39:51] Andrew Child: Yeah. Do you think if you were tasked tomorrow with putting on ANYTHING GOES, is there a responsibility for the director, for the creative team, for the dramaturg, whoever's putting together the program? Do we need to know? Like, do we need some of the references broken down for us to enjoy this show?

[40:18] Robert W. Schneider: I to enjoy the show? No. Great. To enjoy the show? No. The show works. Show show absolutely works. And like I said, in You're the top, it's about joy, and that first verse, words poetic. I'm so pathetic that I've always found it best instead of getting them off. I just let them rest on this one. It sets up very clearly to us, I'm gonna cheer him up. Uh-huh. So we know. We know that's what she's intending to do. So we don't have even if we don't know what the pants of a Roxy Usher mean means, we're still on board because we know what her objective is.

[40:50] Andrew Child: Right. Okay.

[40:51] Robert W. Schneider: So I no, I don't think so. I also don't think jokes are funny if you have to explain them. So if you either get you either get the joke or you don't get the joke. Uh-huh. You either get Bendel Bonnet or you don't get Bendel Bonnet. Great. It's not, it doesn't, it doesn't change your it doesn't make you go, I I didn't like this show because I didn't know what the pants of a Roxy Usher were. You know what I mean?

[41:13] Andrew Child: Right.

[41:14] Robert W. Schneider: Which, no offense to the show. My heart goes out to every high schooler out there in perpetuity forever, who has to do Bye Bye Birdie. And Al Schweitzer Joe. Oh, yeah. And even some of like the Mussolini stuff, like some of it is. They're all the same from Benedict Arnold to Mussolini. Yeah, there's a couple jokes in there. Clinda Meissen, like that's just like Yeah. They don't land, but I think you are right. I think You're the top is still fun as long as you're big, you're broad in every sense.

[41:47] Andrew Child: Yeah, and it's also, I mean, like I said, you know, there are some references in there that it still lands. You might not get every reference, but you'll at least get one out of every six.

[41:56] Robert W. Schneider: Okay. And that's and that's that's great. That's pretty good. We know you're right. Like something like Bye Bye Birdie is really. I always feel bad for the shows where you're like, I have no understanding. Like Bells Are Ringing. Oh no. It's so hard because you just go, uh, do people understand what an answering service is? The premise. Like the premise, the whole premise of this idea is so bizarre. It's a pajama game, getting a pajama game. What's what's going on?

[42:21] Andrew Child: Exactly.

[42:21] Robert W. Schneider: And though those to me, I think those are ones I'm like, ooh, how do how does a younger generation tap into that? But you don't you wouldn't put ANYTHING GOES or any of these songs in that camp necessarily?

[42:35] Andrew Child: No, no, I would not.

[42:37] Robert W. Schneider: Okay. I would not. No. I I think that on they're just they're joyous. They're joyous, and you you get the point of what's supposed to be happening. Do you think will we see a resurgence in your imagination of sort of joyous musicals anytime soon? Like, are we due for that?

[42:56] Andrew Child: I think so because I think what we're going through now is not that different from what people were going through in the 1930s. And I'm sure people will say, no, there's a difference. And yes, I know that, but what I'm talking about is this national identity of who are we? Uh-huh. What are we doing with ourselves? And are we ever gonna be able to afford to get things that we want and to do things that we want? I think the fact that in the 1930s, people were desperately—I mean, look, look at the pandemic. What was most successful during the pandemic? Escapism, right? People that's what people were looking at during any time the country goes through a national crisis, which is what we're going through right now, and we've been going through it now, I think for quite a long time.

People look for escapism. People look for ways of being uh taken out of themselves, and I think Broadway, at times like this, does a really good job of providing that. Like, for example, look at the early 2000s, right after 9/11. Look at all the musicals that came in that were successful Hairspray, Millie, Mamma Mia. It was all shows that were comfort food. Comfort food. And I think that we will be getting more shows like ANYTHING GOES, which is just it's com it's we just want to make you laugh. We just want to make you laugh. I think what's gonna be tricky is in this day and age, what exactly can make people laugh and what's appropriate comedy. I think that's something I don't think they were dealing with during the Cole Porter's time.

[44:43] Andrew Child: Okay, which is what can we, what what is funny? Because I think right now, and that's also a problem with ANYTHING GOES, which is there's stuff in ANYTHING GOES now that you go, oh gee, gee, what? Jesus, yeah. What is this? Like, this is offensive. How are we gonna handle this? Right. So I think one of the big issues that people are running into now with comedy is how do you create a comedy that's funny, but at the same time not offend people or marginalize people or diminish people, and that's something that they were not dealing with that we're dealing with now. So I'm I guess so the answer is I think yes, but I think it might be done in a more sensitive manner.

[45:21] Andrew Child: Okay.

[45:22] Robert W. Schneider: But it it's very possible though, you know. Oh, absolutely. People are doing it. Oh, of course. And I think we'll see more of them. I think we'll see more of them. I think that I don't know if it'll ever be at the wit and sophistication. Although, you know what? I'm sorry, I besides David Yasburg, I can't believe I left his name off. Lynn Manuel Miranda. I I feel like his desire to have a perfect lyrical moment and one that is filled with cleverness. Him and David Yazbek, I think would be the two that are carrying on the Cole Porter torch.

[45:54] Andrew Child: All right. The one who comes to mind for me, and I don't know his name, but is uh a TikToker who does these raps that just sort of ramble through pop culture and like references all these moments.

[46:08] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, I love that.

[46:10] Andrew Child: But it's it's maybe like a very literal uh translation of what Cole Porter was doing, but I do think it's it is what Cole Porter was doing, and it's everything you were just talking about, where it's like the whole comedy of it relies on you having an image of your mind this time not of Joe DiMaggio, but uh Azalea Banks. Like you having a perspective, you knowing who Shrek is, you know, stuff like that.

[46:37] Robert W. Schneider: Exactly. Exactly. And those things go on for a while. And so I think you can get maybe like I don't know, I think You're the top works for about 50 years or so entirely, and then it starts to dip off, and people go, what's the rocks? Who's Bendel? What's this? What's that? And I'm sure within 50 years, sort of the same thing. They'll go, who's Azalea Banks? Who, yeah. Oh, I know Shrek. Oh, yeah. What's his who's that? What is that? Is that a location? Sure, yeah. You know, and so no, and I but I I think you have like a 50-year shelf life.

[47:12] Andrew Child: Okay.

[47:12] Robert W. Schneider: With with some of those things. But there's Shrek is the Mickey Mouse. Oh, I got it. Mickey Mouse. Shrek Shrika Shrek is the mini mouse. Say no more. Mickey Mouse, got it. You're the top. Understood. And it's interesting, actually. Like when I do um, I want it all in my classes, it's interesting to note, like as time goes on, how many more times hands will go up and go, who's this person? Like 20 years ago, it would be like, uh, I want to be Margaret Sanger, Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Mead. Okay. And people would go, I know Margaret Mead and I know Margaret Thatcher, but who's Margaret Sanger? Okay. And now it's like, I don't know who any of these people are. So it's interesting to watch as time goes on, how that sort of just fades out of people's consciousness.

[47:56] Andrew Child: Then one of the questions I think that comes up a lot with You're the top, actually, and a lot of Cole Porter songs is do we update it to like get people to understand or to make a joke land better?

[48:13] Robert W. Schneider: I don't think you need to.

[48:15] Andrew Child: Okay.

[48:15] Robert W. Schneider: But that's just me. But I don't know, like, if we get to that point, is that the time that we say, Great, thank you. ANYTHING GOES, go join up the I Sing. Maybe we'll see you at Encours.

[48:27] Andrew Child: Oh, great.

[48:28] Robert W. Schneider: No, I know. I don't think I don't think so, because I think that is a small like one tiny percent of the overall show. If there was a show that like, I mean, and we I'm trying to think of like ones off the top of my head where they're so pop culture heavy that you're like, I just can't. Oh, you know what which one comes to my mind, and it's actually I think a good show, is something like Top Banana, okay, which is a musical from the 50s, and it's a parody of Milton Burrell's television show and making fun of Milton Burl. And uh if you don't know who he is and you don't know the show, then it kind of just young that's when I'm like, you're gonna go to Encores, and we'll see you in 10 years with Nathan Lane playing the role in best of luck. Um, but ANYTHING GOES. The contemporary references is just a small part of the overall part of the show. Honestly, you could cut You're the top and still have a great show.

[49:24] Andrew Child: Oh, absolutely.

[49:25] Robert W. Schneider: As long as you have Blow Gabriel Blow. Yeah, nobody needs nobody needs that. And that's the other thing, which is you enjoy ANYTHING GOES, you didn't know it was based on Amy Semple McPherson. No. You just go, that's a fun character. Right. If you know who Amy Simple McPherson is, it gives it elevates it a little bit, it adds a layer, but it doesn't take anything away. Top Banana is a show where if you don't know who Milton Burl is, this show makes no sense. Okay. I think.

[49:51] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[49:52] Robert W. Schneider: Okay. You know, and you just sit there and you go, I don't get this. What's up? Like, why is this fun? Why is this funny? I don't think you have that problem when ANYTHING GOES. You still go, I know why this is funny.

[50:03] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[50:04] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah. Still enjoy.

[50:04] Andrew Child: I think so. Great. Well, thank you so much for chatting about ANYTHING GOES with me.

[50:09] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, thanks, Andrew. This was such a pleasure. I'm so happy that you uh asked me to come and talk about it.

[50:13] Andrew Child: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you, listeners, for joining us today. Please make sure to purchase a copy of 50 Key Stage Musicals by visiting Routledge.com or by clicking in today's show description. If you want to learn more about ANYTHING GOES, please also review the links in the below description. I'm Andrew Child, and thank you for listening to 50 Key Stage Musicals, the podcast.