Washington Post - Highly Recommended
"...Virtually everything is stylish, tuneful and splendidly free-spirited. The many delightful, de-lovely ingredients include Joyce Chittick's cheerfully lusty turn as Erma, Moonface's sometime moll. As a half-dozen muscular sailors pass Erma among themselves like an especially delectable dessert tray during "Buddie, Beware," Chittick coos, "I love this boat." Amen, sister."
DC Theater Arts - Highly Recommended
"...It's time for hilarity and "high-jinks on the high seas" in The Kennedy Center's current production of Cole Porter's Anything Goes. Possessing equal qualifications to be classified as glossy escapist fare, a retro trip into the past and - most especially - a music-lovers parade of classic standards by the legendary Cole Porter, this production of Anything Goes (originating from the acclaimed Roundabout Theatre Company's New York City Revival) chugs along on just enough amiability, technical polish, vocal chops, and choreographic skills to avoid sinking under the problematic book (that has undergone several permutations from P.G. Wodehouse to John Weidman, and Timothy Crouse). that it is saddled with."
Baltimore Sun - Highly Recommended
"...
The beautiful thing about "Anything Goes," directed and choreographed with panache by Kathleen Marshall, is that it acts proudly like a vintage show -- no hint of deconstruction here -- but never comes across as dusty or faded. Even the most obvious jokes and inevitable plot-turns have a fresh taste."
MetroWeekly - Highly Recommended
"...The show's famous title song winks and nods as it giddily deplores a post-Puritan debased culture where good's bad and black's white -- and women's lib has run amok. The not-so-openly gay Porter was a master at disguise: His clever lyrics are often less wholesome -- or in any case more sexual -- than they first appear. On the surface you might think Anything Goes is a critique of society and pop culture. But it's all just for show. And what a show!"
Washington City Paper - Highly Recommended
"...There's no arguing, really, with what Anything Goes is—a show designed decades ago to entertain that old-schooliest Broadway Everypatron, the Tired Businessman. It's built from the DNA up to take the wrinkle out of his weary brow, to make him forget his workaday cares, to coax him (and his distaff colleagues, now that we've sailed on into the 21st century) back to something like cheerfulness. But it's a peerlessly pedigreed specimen of that genre, and what makes Kathleen Marshall's staging so thoroughly enjoyable is that it doesn't mind being, wholeheartedly, a first-class bit of fun."
Washington Times - Highly Recommended
"...‘Anything Goes’ is one of those colorful, immensely entertaining shows that’s been revived again and again to considerable success. The reason why becomes perfectly clear within five minutes or so of the opening beat. Loaded with great Cole Porter tunes as well as the composer’s endlessly witty lyrics, chock full of scintillating dance numbers and populated by a talented cast that gets extra mileage from the corniest vaudeville-style jokes, routines and characters, there’s simply no resisting this production, which bursts at the seams with charm and good looks."
Washingtonian - Highly Recommended
"...So silly is the plot of Cole Porter's Anything Goes that you half expect hero Billy Crocker (Josh Franklin) to tack de-luded onto the list of de-lightful, de-licious, de-lovely sweet nothings he hurls his lover's way. But it's ludicrous and gauzily transparent in the same way as PG Wodehouse (who co-wrote the book) is-you know exactly where the characters are going, but it's still so much fun to see the completely bonkers way in which they get there."
Washington Blade - Highly Recommended
".. The production is a first rate national tour of Roundabout Theatre Company’s Tony Award-winning revival. Both directed and choreographed by Marshall, it boasts a stylish nautically deco set by Derek McLane, stuffed pets, loads of fun and a wonderful, crowd-pleasing old time tap dance extravaganza involving sexy chorines, debutantes, well-built sailors, a Christian missionary with a pair of not-so-pious Chinese converts in tow, and a cast that brings the show’s stock characters to life."
The Georgetowner - Highly Recommended
"...If this is old fashioned, it has the peculiar of something just gone viral on YouTube. Thank York for that and Cole Porter, but also Josh Franklin for his insistent wooing as Billy Crocker, the graceful Alex Finke as the ingénue, Fred Applegate for having so much fun with Moonfaced Martin and Edward Staudenmeyer for having even more fun with Evelyn, oh lord, Oakleigh."
MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended
"...Ladies and gentleman, this is your reviewer speaking. Climb aboard a luxury ocean liner for an evening of hit tunes by Cole Porter and award winning choreography by Kathleen Marshall. Your ship is called the Anything Goes and it departs from Kennedy Center's Opera House. Once onboard be prepared to find mistaken identities, medaling debutante mothers, filthy rich businessmen, gangsters, and a Mae West type singer named Reno Sweeney playing nightly with her angels in the Porter nightclub of the ship."
DCTheatreScene - Recommended
Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2011 Tony Award-winning production of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes has everything one would expect from a musical comedy of that era – complicated onboard romances, wacky hijinks and mistaken identities on a ship traversing the Atlantic, a gangster or two, a scandalous woman, a good girl, and peppy choreography.
