Cole Porter’s 1934 musical Anything Goes begins in a bar with a few of the colorful characters who will be sailing on the ocean liner S.S. American from New York to London. In the spring show at Nauset Regional High School this weekend, that first scene will happen at the front of the new stage as a buildup to what participants are excitedly calling “the big reveal.”
When it’s time for the passengers to board, the curtains will open on the 16-foot-high set of the ship’s decks, the main setting for the show’s romantic and musical antics of mistaken identity. It’s an extravagant feat that the school’s drama program has waited three springs to be able to pull off.
“Because we’ve got this glorious new space, we’re able to really give the audience the old razzle-dazzle,” says drama teacher and director Ian Hamilton, a 2017 Nauset graduate. “This is an opportunity for us to lean into spectacle.”
During a recent rehearsal, the luxury liner was still just single beams and nailed-together boxes. Onstage, actors worked through dance steps and miming of trumpet-playing for the musical’s showstopping revival song, “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.”
“Well, that wasn’t half bad, everybody,” said Hamilton before moving the rehearsal to a classroom to allow the crew to keep building the set. Leading the crew was set designer and technical director Aidan Pernal, a junior from Eastham, who has put in long hours, including much of April vacation, to get ready for the four shows from May 15 to 17.
Pernal won three awards this winter for creating the set, sound, and lighting for Little Women, Nauset’s entry in the Mass. Educational Theater Guild’s High School Drama Festival. He excitedly showed how the ship set, with staircases and 36-foot rails, is put together like Lego blocks and how new lights can be controlled individually with an iPad. “It’s amazing — it’s state-of-the-art,” Pernal said. “There are a million lights in here, and we have a very modern sound system.”
With 714 seats, including a balcony, the new auditorium is about twice the size of Nauset High’s previous theater, according to Hamilton. In December, following completion of the first phase of a $170-million reconstruction project, the hall debuted with a holiday concert featuring students and alumni. Since then, it has seen a students-only concert, Little Women, and a student-directed play, along with Eastham’s annual town meeting.
But nothing before Anything Goes has tested so many features of the new auditorium. There are 16 rails for assembling heavy scenery like second-story walls and a shipboard jail cell. There are catwalks for access to lighting, new microphones, and a big enough stage for the smokestack atop the ship’s second level. And the curtains actually close.
The front row of seats can be removed to create space in front of the stage for the pit orchestra, which music teacher Daniel Anthony will conduct. For Anything Goes, there will be 12 musicians — five professionals and seven students from Nauset’s band, jazz band, and orchestra — on strings, woodwinds, brass, piano, bass, and drums.
Nauset Drama had been homeless since the fall of 2022, but local theaters came to the rescue. Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, Brewster’s Cape Rep Theatre, and Academy Playhouse in Orleans all provided space and expert advice for five big shows. Wellfleet Preservation Hall hosted the group’s Haunted House last year. Despite travel challenges, says senior Niev Witnauer, the stage manager and Nauset Drama president, there were advantages in those experiences: students working with theater professionals and learning to adapt to different stages.
The Anything Goes cast includes 22 students from Nauset’s after-school program and Hamilton’s honors acting class, with another half dozen on the crew. Evan Smith plays Billy Crocker, who stows away on the ship to follow an intriguing woman, Hope Harcourt (Ryan MacDonald), who is engaged to Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (Alyia Vasquez). Fiona McCray plays nightclub singer Reno Sweeney, who’s trying to help Billy woo Hope. They fall in with gangster Moonface Martin (Desmond Conrad-Ferm).
Hamilton says that the stresses teenagers are experiencing these days informed the choice of a romantic comedy for this production. “I wanted something light,” he says. “The world is a tricky place right now, and doing a big, fun, gently screwball comedy is appealing to me artistically and a lot easier for getting the kids to be successful.” A musical with more serious themes, like Rent, could have been too overwhelming, he says.
Students say the drama group is an important community for them. Smith, a sophomore, says she received a warm welcome after moving from California to Orleans last year.
The camaraderie and Hamilton’s collaborative style were obvious as his actors practiced dance steps and dialogue for the musical’s finale, when romantic partners rhapsodize about their futures. Trying to milk laughs from one song line, the group mulled where Moonface Martin should point when he warns that love can lead to parenthood.
When the students finally decided that the gesture would be funniest if directed at the audience, Hamilton said, “OK. Anything goes!”
The Curtains Open
The event: Anything Goes, the musical
The time: Thursday, May 15, 7 p.m.; Friday, May 16, 7 p.m.; Saturday, May 17, 2 and 7 p.m.
The place: Nauset Regional High School, 100 Cable Road, Eastham
The cost: $20, $15 for seniors, $10 for students at nausetschools.org
