Local theater opens season with bit of Wild West

Friday, Sept. 19, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.

What: "Annie Get Your Gun."

When: 8 p.m. today, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (additional performances will be Sept. 25 through Sept. 28).

Where: UNLV's Judy Bayley Theatre.

Tickets: $20; $15 for students and seniors.

Information: 895-2787.

She was one of America's greatest sharpshooters. He was one of the country's greatest composers.

Their combined contributions to American culture created a long-running Broadway show with a hit-parade of songs, including "Anything You Can Do" and "There's No Business Like Show Business."

As its season opener, the Nevada Conservatory Theatre will celebrate the legend of Annie Oakley and the music of Irving Berlin in the 1999 Broadway revival of "Annie Get Your Gun."

The production, directed by Aaron Tuttle (a directing student from UNLV's Master of Fine Arts program) opens tonight at the Judy Bayley Theatre.

Its arrival at UNLV coincides with the university's first annual Entertainer/ Artist Hall of Fame, which recently inducted George Sidney, a Las Vegas resident and director of the film version of "Annie Get Your Gun," as well as "Show Boat," "Kiss Me Kate" and "Viva Las Vegas."

The story begins when Oakley and marksman Frank Butler first meet, and follows their relationship up to the "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" shows. Student Julie Ann Heaton will perform as Oakley and student Sean Boyd, who played Nick in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," will perform as Frank Butler.

This revival version includes young lovers Tommy Keeler and Winnie Tate, who for the past 50 years have been absent from the production, Tuttle said. It also represents American Indians more positively than the original production.

"The theme of this show is lovers backstage, lovers onstage, lovers of stage," Tuttle said. "It is a more modern telling of the Annie Oakley legend and the theme of people putting a show together."

The real Oakley, born in 1860 to a Quaker family in Ohio, began hunting and selling small game to help support her financially struggling family. At 15 she met Butler at a shooting contest. They were married in 1876 and performing shows in the early 1880s, eventually hooking up with "Buffalo Bill's Wild West."

"Annie Get Your Gun" opened on Broadway in 1946 starring Ethel Merman. In 1999 the revival won a Tony Award, as did Bernadette Peters.

"It's one of the greatest music scores of any show," Tuttle said. "First of all, you have a great composer. The show has such American themes. The musical is really the Americans' contribution to the theater. The wild West show was the start of the musical."

Also scheduled for the Nevada Conservatory Theatre's 2003-04 season are "How I Learned to Drive," "Macbeth," "Lenny" (on comic Lenny Bruce), "Let 'er Rip," starring Rip Taylor, and "A View From the Bridge."com