Where do you go after you get glowing reviews for your Broadway debut, but your show closes prematurely? If you are Marcia Milgrom Dodge, director-choreographer of the recent compact revival of Ragtime, you head to Jupiter, Florida, for a head-clearing assignment to assemble a production of Cole Porter’s tap-happy musical comedy, Anything Goes.
Talking to Dodge on a rehearsal break at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, the disappointment over Ragtime’s inability to muster a sufficient audience still lingered. “I don’t understand, because anybody who saw it in New York was knocked out,” she says. “It’s mystifying to me why we did not run.”

Still, she made some great contacts through the experience, even if most of them have jumped to the conclusion that her specialty is epic dramatic shows. “After Ragtime, I got a lot of people who wanted to send me properties that were dealing with race and dealing with darker issues,” says Dodge. “Those who know the rest of my work, know I’m wild and wacky.”
Right up her alley is Porter’s 1934 romantic farce, a crazy quilt of love matches, mistaken identities and comic reversals, all aboard a luxury liner headed for England. It does not hurt that the show is stuffed with such hit tunes as You’re the Top, It’s De-Lovely, I Get a Kick Out of You and Blow, Gabriel, Blow.
Dodge, who directed Master Class at the Maltz two seasons ago, is no stranger to Anything Goes. She and musical director Helen Gregory did a production of it in 1993 in a suburb of Detroit and repeated that take on the material seven years ago at Vero Beach’s Riverside Theatre.
It features what she calls rhythm tap dance. “It’s really inspired by Bill Robinson and Fred Astaire and Gregory Hines. It’s very different than what you see in 42nd Street,” she says. “And we don’t pretend we’re not doing a tap show. Everyone’s in tap shoes. When people walk around the stage, they’re going to make a little noise.
“I have some of the funniest farceur actors that I think this stage has ever seen. And then I have Tari Kelly, who’s one of the most extraordinary Reno Sweeneys ever,” the evangelist-turned-nightclub-owner female leading character. “She sings, she acts, she’s romantic, comedic and she’s a fierce tap dancer.”
What’s next for Dodge, the director that unimaginative New York wants to typecast as a stager of somber musicals?
“I’m going to direct the next Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus,” she announces with amusement. “I’ll prepare it all year, and it will launch in January 2011.”
It is safe to say it will not be like any previous circus you have seen.

Halloween thrills, without chills: Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival was delighted with its recent production of the British ghost story, The Woman in Black, at the new Seabreeze Amphitheater in Carlin Park, Jupiter. It just wishes more theatergoers had braved the unseasonably cold weather to see it.
So the company is bringing the show back in October, just in time for Halloween, at Jupiter’s Atlantic Theater. Producer Kermit Christman says they will be exploring the dynamic of a smaller, more intimate version of the play with “less bombast.” But if you missed it in Carlin Park, you missed the opportunity to see the play for free.

Dramaworks turns 10: In celebration of its first decade of operation, Palm Beach Dramaworks is throwing itself a party. Of course since it is also a fund-raiser for the troupe, consider yourself invited. The date is Wednesday, the place is the Kravis Center’s Cohen Pavilion. In addition to cocktails, dinner and dancing, there will be a performance by students of the Dreyfoos School of the Arts and a special videotaped congratulatory message from Edward Albee, the playwright whose works are most frequently produced by the company.
For ticket information, call (561) 514-4042, Ext. 1.