For 20 years, director Joseph Lillis has been doing Cole all over the country. Some Like It Cole! is a straight-ahead revue, with thrushes Livia Genise, Linda McCulloch, and Beth Wilmurt belting out the songs. The show, which is running concurrently in Dallas right now, opens in San Francisco this week. The hook is the modern perspective the three leading ladies bring to Porter's songs. They gleefully dig up an old Porter tune from a 1943 show -- it flopped -- called Mexican Hayride. The song, "Count Your Blessings," basically says, "Life is tough. Get over it." That's the holiday spirit! Bonus: a medley tribute to Ethel Merman, the brassy belter from Anything Goes who immortalized Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You." It's still true: There's no song like a Cole Porter song.
-- Kelly Silbernagel
Some Like It Cole! opens Monday, Dec. 29, at 8 p.m. at the Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter (at Mason), S.F. Admission is $29-34; call 771-6900 for tickets and a complete schedule of performances.
