Pictures By Alan

Is Annie Get Your Gun older than we have been led to believe? Yes! The photos above provide proof. On the left is a stool from the TCBCS production of AGYG. On the right is a virtually identical stool found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

As convincing as this evidence is, tantalizing new evidence has emerged from a dig in Amarna. A recently excavated tablet contains an inscription, apparently announcing the opening of a musical, Aniton Get Your Bow. It opened July 18, 1336 BC, starring the famous Nefertiti in the role of Aniton. Doubtless the young Tutankhamun saw the performance and asked Nefertiti (who was his mother-in-law) for a keepsake from the show. The fact that this stool was buried with Tutankhamun proves that he was very fond of it.

Evidently Irving Berlin (who, as is well known, was an Egyptologist of considerable skill) discovered and translated the musical while studying in Cairo in 1938. The outbreak of World War II prevented him from producing the play until 1946.