‘Annie Get Your Gun’ On Target With Audiences Coeur D’Alene Troupe Performs Musical By Request

It’s easy to come up with plausible theories about why the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre chose “Annie Get Your Gun” as the inaugural musical of its 30th season:

This Irving Berlin musical is a classic, celebrating its 50th anniversary last year.

The Wild West theme is perfect for a summer-stock theater in Idaho.

The message of one song, “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun,” is particularly relevant these days.

All of these theories are wrong, of course. The real reason the theater is doing “Annie Get Your Gun” is that the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre is a democracy. The audience voted for it at the end of last season.

“Usually what we do is survey the audience, and this year, all four of the shows we picked were the top four vote-getters,” said Roger Welch, the theater’s artistic director. “I think they picked this show because of the Irving Berlin score, those songs like ‘They Say It’s Wonderful,’ ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business,’ ‘Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly.’ “

There’s little doubt that “Annie Get Your Gun” will be a crowd-pleaser. This show, about unlikely romance between Annie Oakley and rival sharpshooter Frank Butler, has been a smash ever since it opened on Broadway in May 1946. Ethel Merman was an absolute sensation as Annie Oakley.

“No use trying to pick a hit tune, for all of the tunes are hits,” wrote critic Vernon Rice in the New York Post the day after opening night. “One is just as hummable and singable as the next. Ethel Merman is at her lusty, free and easy best. Some time ago, Miss Merman jumped from a singing star to a singing comedy star, but last evening she came through as the supreme artist in the musical comedy field.”

Among those other “hummable hits” are “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better),” “I Got the Sun in the Morning” and “The Girl That I Marry.”

Merman went on to do over 1,000 performances of this show on Broadway. Mary Martin was also a smash in the touring company.

Playing Annie in the CDA Summer Theatre production is Judy Ann Moulton, a Seattle actress who was in a national tour of “Mame” with the late Juliet Prowse. Frank will be played by Mark Cotter, a New York actor who was in “Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance” at Lincoln Center in New York.

Stan Foote, a well-known director from Portland, is the director.

As usual with the CDA Summer Theatre, an 18-piece orchestra will be in the pit. Rarely does any musical, even national touring musicals, have a full-sized orchestra these days.

“I fight for that,” said Welch. “There’s nothing like the sound of an 18-piece orchestra. It doesn’t sound the same with an eight-piece orchestra with synthesizers.”

Many of the players are from the Spokane Symphony or are other top musicians from around the region.

Speaking of top talent, some of the familiar names from years past are returning for a full season, including Bobbi Kotula, Cheyenne Jackson and Thara Cooper.

“Annie Get Your Gun” runs through July 19.

The rest of the season includes:

“Jesus Christ Superstar,” July 24 through Aug. 2: This was originally scheduled as “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” but that show was unavailable because it is on a national tour. So they switched to another Andrew Lloyd Webber rock musical based on the Bible. One intriguing note in this production: Jennifer Niederloh will play Judas.

“She sang it best in audition,” said Welch.

“The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” Aug. 7-16: The bawdy and hysterical musical about a house of ill repute. This was actually the top vote-getter in the audience survey.

“South Pacific,” Aug. 21-30: The Rodgers and Hammerstein masterpiece about interracial love in a Polynesian paradise. Kotula will play Nurse Forbush.

All of these shows will take place in the Schuler Auditorium on the North Idaho College campus.

This professional summer-stock theater began in 1968 at the Coeur d’Alene Playhouse. They were known as the Carrousel Players, and they still go by that name today (they are officially called the Carrousel Players of the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre).

They moved into the 1,180-seat Schuler Auditorium in 1990. Since then, annual attendance has grown from 6,024 to 21,630. Between 70 and 80 percent of the audience is from the Spokane area.

“It’s a nice experience for people to come over to the lake, have a nice dinner and see the show,” said Welch.

Season subscriptions and single tickets are available by calling (800) 4-CDA-TIX.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ON STAGE “Annie Get Your Gun” opens tonight and continues through July 19 at the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre. Thursday, Friday and Saturday shows are at 8 p.m. and Sunday shows are at 2 p.m. All performances are at Boswell Hall’s Schuler Auditorium at North Idaho College. Tickets are $20 for adults, $14 for students under 18. Call (800) 4-CDA-TIX.