Anyone Can Whistle

Anyone Can Whistle
Original Cast Recording
Music	Stephen Sondheim
Lyrics	Stephen Sondheim
Book	Arthur Laurents
Productions	1964 Broadway 1995 Carnegie Hall concert 2010 New York City Center Encores!

Anyone Can Whistle is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The story concerns a corrupt mayoress, an idealistic nurse, a man who may be a doctor, and various officials, patients and townspeople, all fighting to save a bankrupt town. This musical was Angela Lansbury's first stage musical role.

The show was first announced in The New York Times on October 5, 1961: "For the winter of 1962, [Arthur Laurents] is nurturing another musical project, The Natives Are Restless. The narrative and staging will be Mr. Laurent's handiwork; music and lyrics that of Stephen Sondheim. A meager description was furnished by Mr. Laurents, who refused to elaborate. Although the title might indicate otherwise, it is indigenous in content and contemporary in scope. No producer yet." No news of the show appeared until July 14, 1963, in an article in The New York Times about Kermit Bloomgarden, where it discussed the four shows he was producing for the coming season; two were maybes, two were definite. One of the latter was a Sondheim-Laurents musical (now named Side Show). In a letter to Bloomgarden, Laurents wrote, "I beg you not to mention the money problems or any difficulties to Steve anymore. It depresses him terribly and makes it terribly difficult for him to work... It is damn hard to concentrate ... when all the atmosphere is filled with gloom and forebodings about will the show get the money to go on? ... Spare him the gory details." This behavior is considered unusual for Laurents, which runs contrary to his current reputation. Sondheim discovered that Laurents hated doing backers' auditions and he took over that responsibility, playing and singing more than 30. They found 115 investors to back the $350,000 production, including Richard Rodgers and Sondheim's father.

Eager to work with both Laurents and Sondheim, Angela Lansbury accepted the lead role as Mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper, despite her strong misgivings about the script and her ability to handle the score. Also signed were Lee Remick as Nurse Fay Apple and Harry Guardino as Hapgood. Laurents had wanted Barbra Streisand for the role of Fay, but she turned it down to star in Funny Girl. Following rehearsals in New York City, the company started pre-Broadway tryouts in Philadelphia from March 2 to 21, 1964. Laurents, ignoring criticism about the show's message being trite and its absurdist style difficult to comprehend, poured his energies into restaging rather than dealing with the crux of the problem.