Annie Get Your Gun - Cast -

Specials at the

center stage SAloon

Bitter Than You - Bourbon meets maple syrup in this rich, citrus-forward cocktail. Lemon juice adds brightness, while aromatic bitters bring depth and a dry, spiced finish.

Moonshine At Night - Peach moonshine and white cranberry peach juice combine for a smooth, fruit-forward drink with a soft gradient and crisp, refreshing character.

Director’s Notes

When tackling the wonderful challenge of producing a piece of art based on historical events and people, as a director, I find a deep sense of both excitement and responsibility. No art piece can ever fully represent a person’s life or historical events with 100% integrity, and I’m not sure that is the point of art anyway. However, we can use art to consider historical events in a modern context while also taking a moment to reflect on how history has shaped us, created our perceptions of different people and the world, and at times not always been told in a completely transparent manner.

As Ovation West Theatre tackled “Annie Get Your Gun,” I have come back to one statement over and over: “Two things can be true at once.”

“Annie Get Your Gun” is based on a true story AND it is not completely historically accurate.
“Annie Get Your Gun” has been a critical success since it opened in 1946 AND it has created great discussion about complex issues, including historical accuracy, feminism, and its representation of Indigenous peoples.
Annie Oakley is considered by many to be a strong feminist due to her success in a field mainly dominated by males and her mission to teach over 15,000 women how to shoot a gun during her lifetime AND some people struggle with the title of feminist for her because she was not an outspoken proponent for the Suffragette movement, and often cherished many of the feminine ideals of her time.
Buffalo Bill was a complex character who, early in his career, killed Native Americans in the famous Indian Wars and fostered stereotypes about Native Americans through his use of them in his Wild West Shows AND Buffalo Bill is one of the most known, written about, and romanticized American folk heroes in history who, late in his career, worked hard to create understanding of differing cultures around the world including Indigenous Peoples.
Art can entertain and showcase the best of humanity AND it can inspire honest conversations around challenging topics about some of the worst of humanity while encouraging each of us to learn how we can be and do better.

“Annie Get Your Gun” focuses on a female character who defied all odds in so many parts of her life to become one of the highest-paid and most respected entertainers of her time. She was also a woman full of empathy who fought for the rights and protections of single mothers and orphaned children. Her husband, Frank Butler, was a proud man who (unlike his representation in the musical) quickly acknowledged Annie’s talents and supported her rise to fame while fighting for her reputation when it was challenged by others. They were so in love that Frank died of starvation and a broken heart eighteen days after Annie passed away.

Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show created a sensation with the representation of cowboys and cowgirls, which dazzled people from all social classes throughout the world, packing the arenas where he performed. He is lauded for his care to showcase the culture of Native Americans through their dress, their dances, and their language, while being blamed for the stereotypical ways he represented Indigenous people as savages who were almost always defeated by their white colonizing invaders. Buffalo Bill’s popularity and success led to these stereotypes continuing to persist in American entertainment through Western movies and TV shows.

Ovation West Theatre Company chose this show as a part of our season to celebrate the sesquicentennial of Evergreen, Colorado. Annie Oakley joined the Wild West Show in 1885, and Evergreen was founded in 1890. Buffalo Bill spent a great deal of time in the Foothills area, hunting and exploring, and is even buried not far from Center Stage on Lookout Mountain. The Wild West of the Colorado mountains and the Wild West represented in “Annie Get Your Gun” are deeply connected. As such, we are offering a number of opportunities to connect to the history of this show and its connections to our state through after-show talkbacks and partnerships with The Buffalo Bill Museum and History Colorado, as well as local Native American experts and advocates. I hope that the iconic characters and rich history of this piece of art will encourage you to explore the history of Colorado, Indigenous Peoples, and America more deeply, and learn from both the good and the challenging aspects.

As modern Americans, this version of Annie Get Your Gun which premiered on Broadway in 1999, calls us to acknowledge the harm done to American Indians during the colonizing of America and the expansion to the west. It made very decisive cuts and alterations from the original version written in 1946 which white-washed history and perpetuated stereotypes that have created harm of Indigenous Peoples in America.

In order to begin this conversation of how we as a cast and crew chose to acknowledge the complexities and challenging topic of colonization, representation, and the history of Native Americans, we must first take a moment to acknowledge that the theater we are producing this show in occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Ute, Arapahoe and Cheyenne tribes. We recognize the tragic legacy of colonization, genocide, and oppression that caused unjust removal of native peoples as well as harmful assimilation and destruction of tribes their culture that still impact Native American lives today. We encourage everyone to do their own research on tribal removal, tribal sovereignty and tribal genocide and the history of the land on which you reside.

In attempting to show respect to the harm done in this country to Indigenous Peoples, the cast and crew have striven to educate ourselves about the topics surrounding this show especially working to understand how the events surrounding this show have positively and negatively affected Native Americans as well as compounded misunderstanding and harm. We have been guided by American Indian advocates as well as our Native American cast members concerning understanding the historical and modern context, language, terminology and behavoir. We have made decisions based on their guidance and have attempted to do our due diligence in showing respect to Indigenous People in our representation of them. We are especially grateful to Steven La Pointe and First Tibal Consulting, Philip Gover and History Colorado, and our cast members Ellen Shamas-Brandt, Art Razo, and Calista Rain Masters for their collaboration, education, and patient mentorship!

Finally, we have chosen to replace the turn Sioux which is a derogatory word used by early colonizers to denigrate American Indians with the term Dakota. We also wish to acknowledge that the name given by Chief Sitting Bull to Annie Oakley, Watanya Cicilia was mistranslated for decades as “Little Sure Shot.” Mistranslation of the Lakota language was rampant in colonizers dealings with Indigenous Peoples and created constant misunderstandings or even allowed colonizers to take advantage of Native Peoples in legal documents and treaties. Since that mistranslation has been a part of Annie Oakley’s history for years, we have chosen to keep “Little Sure Shot” in the show, but wish to correct it in the program as being correctly translated to “Little Person Who Did Good Things.”

Production staff

Assistant Stage Manager – Andrew Gattis

Set Build – Biz Schaugaard

Painter – Cathy Carris

Dialect Coach - Christine Kahane

Costumes Designer – Davis Sibley

Assistant Costumes Designer – Deb MacPhee

Wigs & Make-up Design – Phoenix Gayles

Orchestra Musicians

- Martin Robinson, Drums/Percussions

- Mark Stefaniw, Bass

- Ron Pflug, Trumpet

- Adelaide Pappas Naughton, Violin

- Lori Hermanson, Keys 1

- Zerek Dodson, Keys 1

- Lee Ann Scherlong, Conductor/Keys 2

Board Operator – Kevin Atkinson

Graphic Designer – Albena Ivanova

Front of House Manager – Tonje Williams

Executive Director – Graham Anduri

Special Thanks

Steven LaPointe and Erlidawn Roy from 1st Tribal Consulting who aided us in our understanding of historical and modern issues surrounding the American Indian Community and specifically around the Lakota Tribes.

The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave staff including Jacqui Ainley-Conley, Director; Rebecca Jacobs, Collections Manager and Curator; and Christine King, Administrative and Operations Specialist for their immense amount of knowledge, their collaboration and their connections.

History Colorado and Philip Gover, Senior Director of Tribal and Indigenous Engagement for connections and for information

Rob Wright (“Rattlesnake Rob”), who helped us immensely with education on being a cowgirl or cowboy through roping skills and gun skills as well as providing many of our props and set pieces.

Karl Atkinson

Forge Christian High School – Alexa Etchart

Dave Hingtgen

Andrew Gattis

Katrina Glaser

Grant Kenney

Anna Piper

Ovation West DONORS

Over $10,000

Robert Baldwin - Alan Rubin - Ted & Claire Terry

$5,000-$9,999

Karl & Laurie Atkinson - Mary & Steven Montigne - Linda Trenbeath - B Willing Foundation

$1,000-$4,999

JoAnn & Pem Dunn - Hawks Family Foundation - Ruth Hund - Mike & Ann Moore - James He - Kevin Atkinson - Tom Scripps

Under $1,000

Carole Callaghan - Barbara Goldstein - Julie Bell - Jeannie Mann - Jo W Powers - Mande Mischler - Steven Taylor - Patricia Magerkurth - Mark & Linda Bolinger - Russell Houston - Jan Anderson - Anne Chew - Keith Doubleday - Barb & Curt Harris - Kevin Lee - Michelle O'Laughlin - Amy Poole - Linda Tucker - Laura Veckerelli - Alan Groves - Steven & Kim Cox - Susan Lasswell - Judy Cheatham - David Hingtgen - Susan Lehman - Susan McNaughton - Nadja B Pisula-Litoff - Kris Waggoner - Shelley Krane - Ryan Glaser - Michael McKenna - Patsy & John McCord - Deborah Caine - Mark & Margaret Meremonte - Wendy Meister - Marilyn Sandifer - Dena Appleton - Carolyn Alexander - D Gray & Nicole Behrhorst - Fred Bloemendaal - Nancy & David Dickert - Carol & Greg Dobbs - Rocco & Judi Dodson - Evan Ela - Linda Lovin - Barbara MacDonald - Bill Manning - August Mayer - AJ McCullough - Emilie McDonough - Michael & Linda Morris - Helen K Padberg - Mary Jo Poole - Beth Riser - Catherine W Rundle - Kristi Steele - Ardis Strieby - Gary Studwell - Kathleen Sutton - Laura Timmons - Tom & Pam Trumbly - Richard Scudder - Linda Knippa - Joseph Gerlach - Kimberly Poor - Ed & Mary Steinbrecher - Joyce Vanek - Bob Zavodsky - Linda Dey - Edwin Doolittle - Carolyn Norblom - Christiane Schmenk - Katie Ulfig - Mary Jane Lowe - Laurie Blohm - Susan Courtney - Kirk Dorn - Brenda- Jansen - Jean Laverty - Therese Lincoln - Gretchen Moritz - Suzanne Plaut - Gary Sims - Timothy Steele - Anne Vickstrom - Francie Wyatt - Kirsten Arthur - Randolph Huiting - Gary Leever - Rebecca Dickey - Brandon Moore - Dusty Dodge - Margie Clinton - Richard Jacobs - Tracy Ratzlaff - Peggy Ballengee - Vickie Borden - Donna Mullins - Jennifer Rich - Olympia Vida - Denise Wylde - Mike Golden - Theodore Ning - Pamela Hinish - Amy Sares - Katie Szana - Carol Cornell

*Donations made to Ovation West Performing Arts between July 1st, 2024 and June 30th, 2025

Ovation West Performing Arts Season