Director Anthony Hamilton, music director Marie Kerstetter, and lead actor Kris Allemang Stahl join Cara Lieurance to preview Cole Porter's Anything Goes, opening Friday, Sep 18 at the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre. The high-seas musical comedy kicks off the Civic's 98th season and marks a homecoming for all three: each played a part in the theater's last production of the show, 20 years ago.
For Hamilton, juggling shows is nothing new — Anything Goes opens the same week he starts rehearsals for The Three Musketeers at Western Michigan University. "This is how you expect this — it is the job," he says of the overlap, calling the new production "a gift to the community" after a strong tech rehearsal.
Allemang Stahl, who played one of Reno Sweeney's backup singers in the 2006 production, now takes on the lead role herself. Off stage, she works as a teaching artist for Education for the Arts and freelance choreographer at local high schools, including Loy Norrix, her alma mater.
Kerstetter, who has led the pit for the show before, praises Porter's score for staying true to the Jazz Age, with brass and reeds carrying through the entire show rather than saving flourishes for the finale. She also credits the strength of the ensemble Hamilton, choreographer Sarah Sherman and she assembled together, noting simply, "they are high energy on and off the stage."
Casting the show came down to trusting their instincts. "Fortunately, our guts agree," Kerstetter says of the collaborative process with Hamilton. Hamilton echoes that spirit when describing the company as a whole: "We're a family, and that's what we hope to impart to our cast."
Anything Goes runs six performances, September 18–27, with an ASL-interpreted show Sep 19. Tickets are available at kazoocivic.com or by calling (269) 343-1313.
The interview was summarized by Claude AI and edited by the author.
