ANYTHING GOES Plays the The Hobby Center, Beginning Tonight

The national tour of ANYTHING GOES, the new Broadway revival of Cole Porter's timeless classic musical theatre masterpiece, will make its Houston premiere today, October 14-19 as part of the 2014-2015 Season of Broadway at the Hobby Center.

A limited-time $15 discount is available for select seats at select performances when purchased at the Hobby Center during Theater District Open House on Sunday, August 24 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Visitors to the free event enjoy live entertainment and exclusive backstage access to venues throughout Houston's downtown theater district. For more information on the free, family-friendly event, visit houstontheaterdistrict.org.

Regular ticket prices begin at $20 and can be purchased by calling (800) 982-ARTS or visiting www.BroadwayAtTheHobbyCenter.com or www.TheHobbyCenter.org. For groups of 10 or more, call 888-451-5986 or e-mail houston.groups@broadwayacrossamerica.com.

To stay up-to-date and get the inside scoop on ANYTHING GOES before it sails into Houston, join our social community at Facebook.com/BroadwayAcrossAmericaHouston, Twitter.com/BAAHouston, Facebook.com/TheHobbyCenter and Twitter.com/HobbyCenter.

Winner of the 2011 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, ANYTHING GOES sails to the Hobby Center under the direction of Sean McKnight and Jennifer Savelli. McKnight and Savelli will recreate the original direction and choreography by Kathleen Marshall, who won the 2011 Tony Award for Best Choreography.

ANYTHING GOES features music and lyrics by Cole Porter; original book by P.G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse; and new book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman.

Cole Porter's roundup of nostalgic hits in the production include "You're the Top," "Friendship," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "It's De-Lovely," "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" and, of course "Anything Goes."

ANYTHING GOES, the 1934 musical comedy about the lovers, liars and clowns on a transatlantic cruise is "a daffy, shipshape romp!" - Variety. When the S.S. American heads out to sea, etiquette and convention head out the portholes as two unlikely pairs set off on the course to true love... proving that sometimes destiny needs a little help from a crew of singing sailors, an exotic disguise and some good old-fashioned blackmail.

For more information, visit www.anythinggoesthemusical.com.

Creative Bios:

COLE PORTER (Music & Lyrics) was born in Peru, Indiana, in 1891. He graduated from Yale, where his football songs are still popular. After the failure of his first Broadway show, he lived in Europe, where he married legendary beauty Linda Lee Thomas. Returning to New York in the late 1920s he gained renown for many great songs, including "Night and Day," "Begin the Beguine," "You're the Top" and "I Get a Kick Out of You." His 1930s were highlighted by such Broadway offerings as Anything Goes, Gay Divorce and Jubilee. A crippling riding accident in 1937 left him in constant pain, yet he continued to write memorable scores, among them Can-Can, Silk Stockings and his masterpiece, Kiss Me, Kate. He died in 1964.

GUY BOLTON (1884-1979) and P.G. WODEHOUSE (1881-1975) were both born in England. They were introduced by Jerome Kern, and he suggested they all work together. They did, tirelessly, and in the beginning of their collaboration wrote nearly one show per month - the famed Princess Theatre musicals. Bolton and Wodehouse went on to write more than 20 musicals together. Usually, they collaborated on the book, and Wodehouse wrote the lyrics. Both lived into their nineties, and both, together and individually, were astoundingly prolific. Bolton, with one collaborator or another, or on his own, had a hand in well over 100 musicals and straight plays as well as numerous film scripts and novels. Wodehouse wrote 97 books - most notably the "Jeeves" novels - and countless short stories, articles, essays and films, and in 1975 was knighted side by side with Charlie Chaplin. In addition to Anything Goes, their work together includes Have A Heart; Oh! Boy; Leave It to Jane; Oh, Lady! Lady!!; Sitting Pretty; Oh, Kay! and Rosalie. They remained friends and neighbors (in Remsenburg, NY) throughout their final days.

HOWARD LINDSAY & RUSSEL CROUSE (Co-Authors of the Original Book). The Lindsay and Crouse partnership stands today as the longest collaboration of any writers in theatrical history, lasting for more than 28 years. They first joined forces in 1934, when the producer Vinton Freedley brought them together to rewrite the libretto for Anything Goes (which Lindsay directed). Two years later, they wrote another Cole Porter show, Red, Hot and Blue. Their first straight play, Life With Father, opened in 1939 and holds the record for the longest-running play on Broadway, at 3,224 performances. Lindsay and his wife, Dorothy Stickney, created the roles of Clarence and Vinnie Day, performing them for five years. Among other shows, Lindsay and Crouse also wrote The Sound of Music (score by Rodgers and Hammerstein); the Pulitzer Prize-winning State of the Union; Call Me Madam and Mr. President (scores by Irving Berlin); The Prescott Proposals and The Great Sebastians. They produced The Hasty Heart, Detective Story and Arsenic and Old Lace. Howard Lindsay (1889-1968) was an actor, stage manager, director and playwright before teaming up with Crouse. Russel Crouse (1893-1966) was a newspaperman, a press agent for the Theatre Guild, the author of several books and a librettist before partnering with Lindsay. He later produced, in collaboration with his wife, Anna Erskine Crouse, a son, the writer Timothy Crouse, and a daughter, the actress Lindsay Crouse.

TIMOTHY CROUSE (Co-author of the New Book) has been a contributing editor of Rolling Stone and the Village Voice, as well as the Washington columnist for Esquire, writing numerous articles for these and other publications, including the New Yorker. He is the author of The Boys on the Bus, a classic account of the role of the press in presidential campaigns. With Luc Brébion he translated Roger Martin du Gard's Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort (Knopf, 2000). He is currently writing short stories, one of which, "Sphinxes," was included in the O. Henry Prize Stories 2005. He is the son of one of the original authors of Anything Goes, Russel Crouse.

JOHN WEIDMAN (New Book) has written the books for a wide variety of musicals, among them Pacific Overtures, Assassins and Road Show, all with scores by Stephen Sondheim; Contact, co-created with director/choreographer Susan Stroman; Happiness, score by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman; and Take Flight and Big, scores by Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire. Since his children were pre-schoolers, Weidman has written for "Sesame Street," receiving more than a dozen Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Children's Program. From 1999 to 2009 he served as president of the Dramatists Guild of America.

The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts is operated by the Hobby Center Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Its mission is to expand Houston's reputation as a world-class cultural center by providing a premier performing arts facility, fostering accessibility to the performing arts and promoting arts education, with an emphasis on musical theater. The complex houses two performance chambers, an award-winning restaurant, and an 800 car capacity on-premise parking garage. Built entirely with private money and then gifted to the City of Houston, the Foundation operates the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts without municipal or taxpayer operating support. Please visit TheHobbyCenter.org.

BROADWAY ACROSS AMERICA is part of the Key Brand Entertainment family of companies. BAA is the foremost presenter of first-class touring musicals and plays in North America, operating in 40 markets. As a leading Broadway producer, BAA is dedicated to the development and production of new and diverse theatre. Current/upcoming productions include Beautiful, Bullets Over Broadway, Million Dollar Quartet and Pippin. Past productions include Hairspray, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Memphis, Promises, Promises, The Producers and War Horse. For more information, visit BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com.

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