THAT'S SHOW BIZ

When the first production of "Annie Get Your Gun" was being mounted in 1946, the need arose for some incidental music to carry the set change between the first two scenes. So composer Irving Berlin returned to the piano and wrote "There's No Business Like Show Business," which became the musical's signature song.

That's show biz.

It's also show biz to shoot off guns, sing songs, dance and fall in love on stage, all of which occurs aplenty in "Annie Get Your Gun."

Notre Dame High School will open its annual musical at 8 tonight in the gym. The show will continue Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

"Annie Get Your Gun" is based on the real-life love story between trick shot artists Annie Oakley and Frank Butler, who teamed up to perform in Colonel Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Fifteen-year-old Annie really did meet and beat Frank in a shooting match, and they really did marry a year later.

Irving Berlin told this tale through some songs that have become Broadway standards. "There's No Business Like Show Business" is just the loudmouth among an endearing group of oddballs that includes "Doin' What comes Natur'lly," "They Say It's Wonderful," "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun," "I Got the Sun in the Morning" and "Anything You Can Do."

"There's No Business Like Show Business" also became the signature song of the musical's star, brassy-voiced Ethel Merman, who was forever consigned to sing it every time she performed. Notre Dame junior Jessica Hency has more beautiful colors in her voice than Merman did and has a way about herself on stage. King says she has the same Broadway dream.

Hency first appeared on the Notre Dame stage at age 9 in a production of "Annie." As a freshman she was in "Anything Goes," and last year she played Milly, the female lead in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."

Playing opposite her as Frank Butler is Sean Seyer, who has a theatrical pedigree. Seyer's mother is the production's musical director and his father Dennis directs plays and teaches theater at Southeast Missouri State University.

Sean Seyer appeared in the ensemble of "The Secret Garden," was the steward in "Anything Goes" and played Gideon in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." The program notes that he is the only male member of the cast who has been in four Notre Dame musicals.

Notre Dame previously mounted a production of "Annie Get Your Gun" in 1978. Carrie Buehrle Weber, who played Annie Oakley that year and now lives in St. Charles, will attend one of the performances.

This "Annie Get Your Gun" has a cast of 67, with another 84 students serving on the technical crews. The orchestra is under the direction of Jim Hindman, with Lenny Kuper providing rehearsal accompaniment.