Editor’s Note: Wyoming Public Media received a $23,000 Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources Semiquincentennial grant for a project called “Wyoming’s History Through Listeners’ Eyes.”
Maury Boswell strolled between her marks taped on the stage as the tech crew focused the spotlight, illuminating her curly bob in a soft halo.
It was a week before opening night of “Annie Get Your Gun,” and drama teacher Cara Wodka was running the Park County high schoolers through their paces.
“Annie, we're gonna start from the top of your song with your cue line so that Sam can run these lights,” she called out. “He's also gonna do a follow spot with you, so he's gonna program that while you do it.”
The cast was in a mix of street clothes and costumes. Picture a leather jacket with long fringe and Chuck Taylors, and overalls paired with white gloves and dancing heels. They said they looked a bit like the cast of “Scooby-Doo.”
Boswell, playing the eponymous Annie Oakley, swapped between talk-singing and stretching the notes into a velvety vibrato as they ran the song over and over.
The performance is part of Park County’s contribution to Wyoming’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The state funneled $2 million in grants to towns, tribes, counties and groups for a breadth of activities ranging from historical exhibits to guided walks and events, murals and posters reflecting on Wyoming’s role in the nation’s foundations.
“Annie Get Your Gun” runs April 16 through 18 at the Wynona Thompson Auditorium.
“Basically, it's about Annie Oakley and her getting her start into Buffalo Bill's Wild West show,” Boswell said before rehearsal. She’s a senior at Heart Mountain Academy.
“A big part of it is the love story between Frank Butler and Annie Oakley, so a whole bunch of whimsy there,” said Casper Thoma, a junior at Cody High School. He’s playing Butler.
“And there's lots of drama in the sense of they're both trying to make it big,” added Jolene Anderson, the show’s Dolly Tate. Anderson is a junior at Cody High. “Frank, more so, but Annie gets the taste of fame, and so, of course, they start butting heads trying to be the best, and then it explodes, and then there's chaos. It's a really fun performance.”
"It's a good picture of Cody's experience with America, with Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill being so intertwined with our city's culture,” said Thoma. “It feels like a good way for us to celebrate the 250th.”
“I mean, we're named after Buffalo Bill Cody,” said Anderson. Cody founded the town in 1896 after making a name for himself with his traveling Wild West show. “Buffalo Bill was really, like, thriving in this time period with show business and the arts and these people joining together to make something beautiful.”
“I think going out and being able to chase your dreams, definitely, people do that all the time. I think that it's totally attainable,” said Boswell. She’s headed for Casper College next year on a musical theater scholarship. “I'm gonna be pursuing my dream. I'm gonna have a blast.”
“Buffalo Bill was such a huge part of this town, and I feel like his footprint is all over, whether it's the Buffalo Bill Center of the West or even the Buffalo Bill Spectacular play that we have downtown in the summer,” said Thoma. “It always seeps into our lives, even here at school. I mean, if we're talking about maybe the killing of the buffalo, he gets brought up because he was a part of that.”
But Thoma and Anderson find other parts of Buffalo Bill’s legacy motivating.
“It's also inspiring knowing that there was such a great showman who was here and he does these things,” Thoma said. “I can also be a showman from here who does these things.”
“In Cody, it's a small town. I wasn't lucky enough to be born in LA or New York, where stardom is born,” said Anderson. “[But] if Buffalo Bill can do it, so can you. And it really paves the way for the arts.”
“I like how extra he is,” Boswell chimed in. “I like how he just loves to embellish everything. Let me get in my Buffalo Bill lore. When he stumbled across where Cody was located, he was like, ‘Oh, I had just gotten surgery on both of my eyes,’ and so he claims he got to the top of whatever mountain is over there. He was like, ‘I took my bandages off, and I went, oh, I just gotta build a town here.’”
“No, [he] didn't do that,” she laughs. “I do appreciate the fact that he's a good storyteller.”
“His story of founding, it was false,” Anderson picked up. “But the heart and soul, the heart he put into the town of Cody, is there. This is a huge topic in one of my classes right now. We call it the capital T truth. If your perception of something was huge and grand and sparkly, but in reality it was just a desert, the nugget of truth could be so deep in your soul and, like, that's what I saw. So you tell your story how you want that person to feel how you felt. So even if it's a little slanted, that nugget of truth, or the capital T truth, is the feeling that he needs you to see, because the feeling is the real truth.”
All three say another theme from “Annie Get Your Gun” that rings true to their experience putting the show together is community.
“People are so serious all the time,” Anderson said. “Sometimes dancing in the rain or singing a tune can really just brighten your day, and that's what these cowboys and these cowgirls are doing, and it just makes them happy.”
Anderson’s family is coming to see her on stage – a brother home from college, aunts up from Colorado. “It's just a huge production. We have huge sets. We have hotels, stairs and those smoke pillars that are so tall, and we have the Grigware coming out.”
The Grigware is a massive mural backdrop hanging from the rafters. It depicts the landscape around Cody pre-settlement and was painted by renowned Cody artist Edward Grigware. Shows where it makes sense to use the art are rare, but it’s a perfect fit for “Annie Get Your Gun.”
Dolly Tate, Anderson’s character, is Frank Butler’s assistant. She’s also desperate to be something more, making Annie Oakley the competition.
“My character is so over-the-top and eccentric, and kind of a bad person,” said Anderson. “She is the most jealous, most hateful, spiteful person. And I'd like to say I am the opposite of who I'm playing. For my family, it might be a shock to see me that hateful towards everyone.”
“There's two different kinds of Western people, from what I've seen. There's the hardworking, and then you have the eccentric. And I think we're definitely gonna show one of them pretty well,” Thoma said.
“The first time we showed [one of the songs] backstage, there was a cowboy who you could just tell worked his whole life,” he went on. “And he came up, and he looked us up and down and says, ‘Well, that's the most accurate Hollywood cowboy I have ever seen in my life.’”
