 Stars Shine in Bright 'Anything Goes'By Michael Toscano Special to The Washington Post  There are two stars of Rockville Musical Theatre's presentation of the venerable 1934 Broadway classic "Anything Goes" -- three if you count Cole Porter's songs, including "I Get A Kick Out of You", "You're The Top", "It's Delovely", "Let's Misbehave", "Blow, Gabriel Blow", "All Through the Night" and "Anything Goes". The first star is Allison Gendusa Kennedy. As notorious night club singer Reno Sweeney, Kennedy displays talent and charisma that dominate the show. The other is the work of John K. Monnett, who does the wondrous double duty as director and choreogapher. "Anything Goes," written by comedy writers Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse and Russel Crouse over several incarnations, combines screwball humor and hot dance numbers with Porter's witty, melodic songs. Wall Street junior executive Billy Crocker (Christopher Smith) stows away on an ocean liner in pursuit of the girl he loves, debutante Hope Harcourt (Amy K. Cropper), who is soon to marry a rich and vacuous Englishman named Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (Jack Scheer). Reno conspires to help win Hope's hand for Billy and Oakleigh's hand (and fortune) for herself. Billy, meanwhile, adopts a variety of disguises to avoid the Captain, Hope's mother and his tycoon boss. Billy is assisted by hapless gangster Moonface Martin (Don Armstrong) and his moll (Sara Charbonneau), in a series of misadventures that eventually and him and Moonface in the brig. |