From combat to the stage
Marine Sergeant Michele Crowe takes on Annie Oakley
Last week I got to share the stage with Marine Sergeant Michele Crowe, an amazing woman who led the way for women in combat, and who was starring in the musical Annie Get Your Gun, based on the life of Annie Oakley, another female pioneer. It was a clear case of an amazing woman playing an amazing woman.
The real Annie Oakley was an incredible sharpshooter and a generous human being. She survived a brutal childhood and learned to shoot in the process. To make ends meet and support her family she shot game that she could sell. And then she started winning shooting competitions, met her husband and competitor Frank Butler, was the first cowgirl hired by Buffalo Bill, charmed kings and queens around the world, and later taught women to shoot and how to defend themselves.
Annie Get Your Gun gets some things right and some things wrong about her life, but it’s still hugely entertaining and features some of Irving Berlin’s most famous songs, like “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)” and “They Say It’s Wonderful.” The performance starring Marine Sergeant Michele Crowe was in a small theater in Evergreen, Colorado, with a live six-piece orchestra, and an amateur cast who got paid with a standing ovation.
I had been asked to do a talk-back about cowgirls after their final performance, but their final performance almost didn’t happen--not after the shooting at Evergreen High School on Sept. 10, the 47th school shooting in the U.S. this year. Three members of the cast of Annie Get Your Gun were at the school during the shooting. The 16-year-old shooter critically wounded two classmates before fatally shooting himself.
The small community of Evergreen was reeling, dealing with shock and grief, and after meeting with a trauma counselor who worked with survivors of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, the Evergreen theater paused the run of Annie Get Your Gun.
Before the show resumed, the theater retained a local counselor to meet with the cast and crew. Finally the decision was made, the show would go on, with the hope that Annie Get Your Gun, through shared laughter, inspiration and joy, could become a source of healing. They eliminated all sound effects that could have resembled gunfire. All firearm props were replaced with non-threatening objects. The show received permission from the Irving Berlin estate to alter certain lines that could have been upsetting. (Their request to alter the title of the show was not approved.) And, a mental health professional was on-site during the remaining performances to provide support if needed.
On that final night nothing could contain the boisterous joy of the performers on stage. And after the show, the actress who played Annie joined director Tim Kennedy and me onstage to answer questions about cowgirls. The conversation quickly morphed into talking about strong women.
Michele Crowe didn’t have to learn what it felt like to be a woman in a man’s world when she took on the role of Annie.
The Marine sergeant knew what it was like because she’d been there. She served two combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006 she was one the first volunteers for the Lioness Program which asked female Marines to conduct culturally sensitive weapons searches on women and children at security checkpoints in Iraq so the Marines weren’t violating local customs that prohibit men from physically interacting with women. “We were trying to respect the culture while we were there,” she explained.
Before Michele volunteered to become a Lioness, women were not allowed to participate in combat. She truly was a woman making her way in a man’s world, just like Annie Oakley. Michele loved going to clinics and schools to meet with local women and children and helping them with their needs, and when she returned to the States, she re-upped to join the renamed Female Engagement Team in Afghanistan. There, she engaged in combat several times. “They called the Afghan city of Marjah the Wild West of the Middle East. You never knew what was going to happen.” She earned a combat action ribbon for her service, almost unheard of for female Marines, but that didn’t mean the men she served with all accepted her. She was often told that she didn’t belong there, but she persevered, much like Annie Oakley did 150 years ago.
When Michele re-joined civilian life, she pursued her life-long love of musical theater at Cal-State Fullerton, courtesy of the GI Bill, and she picked up a degree in sonography from Cypress College in Long Beach. She moved to Denver and now works as an ultrasound technician and moonlights whenever she can in the theater.
Playing Annie Oakley wasn’t a huge reach for Michele. As a former Marine, she didn’t have to learn how to handle a rifle, but after the gun violence at nearby Evergreen High School, she reflected that Annie’s use of a gun differed from the violence we see today. In an interview right after the school shooting, she said, “When Annie Oakley and all these Wild West people had these guns, they were using them for different things. They were protecting their cattle. They were finding food for their families. Back then, it took two minutes to prepare a musket to fire one round. But all of those things have changed, and our bills and our amendments need to change with them. Because what we said in 1775 and ’76 doesn’t apply anymore.”
When the show starring Michele Crowe as Annie Oakley resumed, the actors’ rifles were long, thick dowels and gunfire was indicated by a small ding, and an actor twirled a comic-balloon-shaped sign around to show “Pow” or “Bang,” “Hit” or “Miss.”
The show had an appreciative audience. It was a testament to the strength of a community that comes together to find ways to heal. In this case it provided an escape and a way to lift spirits for a few hours.
After the show, I joined Michele and director Tim Kennedy onstage. We talked about the Wild West cowgirls, how tough they were and how they had ridden roughshod over society’s expectations for young women at the time. Annie Oakley was the first of those cowgirls and she led the way for all the young women who followed, just as Michele led the way for women in the military.
It was an honor to share the stage with her.
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What a wonderful story this is! And it’s especially relevant as there has been questioning about roles for women in the military. Clearly it’s important to have a diversity in today’s armed forces.
And it was an honor for her to share the stage with you! Great story, thank you.