“Anyone Can Whistle, subtitled 'A Wild New Musical,' opened in New York on April 4, 1964, at the Majestic Theater. The reviews were generally negative, and Laurents defended himself with the rationalization that Walter Kerr of the Herald Tribune 'didn't like the show because he was a Catholic. The idea that there's no miracles drove him up the wall.' Such a self-protective imagination made Laurents more resilient than Sondheim, who was so discouraged that he talked about quitting the theater entirely. The show closed after nine performances, ultimately becoming a cult musical--meaning that if everyone who says they saw it, actually saw it, it would have run for years.” TheaterResilienceFlops Book:Balancing Act: The Authorized Biography of Angela Lansbury Source: Balancing Act: The Authorized Biography of Angela Lansbury