The Music Man
Hale Center Theater OremView digital playbillOct 6, 2023 – Nov 18, 2023
May I have your attention please! Welcome to the start of Hale Center Theater Orem’s Autumn season and River City Iowa. There are few musicals in American history as well known as The Music Man. People who’ve never seen The Music Man still know The Music Man. No other musical can boast timeless classics like “Seventy-Six Trombones,” “Goodnight, Ladies,” “Shipoopi,” “Gary, Indiana,” and of course “(Ya Got) Trouble.” A period piece, the show is a snapshot of how people in the late 1950s imagined life at the turn of the century. It captured audience’s imagination, and longing for a simpler time, winning five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Set in 1912, The Music Man took its audience of the day back to a time before the Great War, the Great Depression, and World War II. The biggest concern for the people of River City isn’t nuclear bombs, it’s a pool table. And yet the people of River City themselves are not simple. (Well, at least not all of them.) The lesson Harold Hill learns is that a town full of country bumpkins has more than enough judgement, brains, and maturity to deal with him. The Music Man is a valentine to rural America, not a caricature. The redolent nostalgia, humor, and joy of the piece lies in its faithfulness to real, small-town Midwesterners, not in their ridicule. Writer Meredith Willson was himself from Mason City, Iowa. He grew up surrounded by Pickalittle Ladies, Constable Lockes, and Mayor Shinns. He didn’t want audiences to look down on River City, he wanted them to love it. This is the lesson Harold Hill himself has to learn. There’s never been a better instance of a con man’s plan backfiring. In trying to trick the people of River City with the quaint fear of billiards, “Professor” Hill inadvertently gives our loveable, little town an excuse to see past their own noses and look each other in the eyes. The key theme of The Music Man is transformation (and that starts with “T”). Harold Hill thinks the townspeople of River City will transform him into a rich man, but instead they transform him into a good man. The Music Man is an Americanized twist on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, with Harold needing Marian to improve himself just like the Beast needs Beauty to change back into a man. Most of what gets people to transform for the better is realizing they had everything they needed inside of them all along—if only they weren’t too distracted or stubborn! (Even if they’re being Iowa stubborn.) The Music Man has endured in our minds and hearts for almost 70-years and will continue to do so. It was brought back for Broadway revivals in 1980, 2000, and 2022. It was adapted as a film in 1962 and 2003, and given homage by The Simpsons, Boston Legal, My Little Pony, and many others. Of course, it’s been produced by high schools, colleges, church groups, and community theaters more times than anyone could count. We think our production leaves them all behind, though we leave you to be the judge of that. We’d “like to make today worth remembering.” Jenny would like to dedicate this production to her very own Music Man, her son Hudson.