By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
“The Music Man” is the perfect musical for community theater. And the Black Swamp Players production that opens Friday only goes to prove that point. The classic Meredith Willson is a celebration of the power of the arts to bring people together. The show runs weekends through Sunday, Feb. 24.
This revelation comes from an unlikely source. Traveling huckster Professor Harold Hill (Bradley King) shows up in River City a town of crabbed sensibilities. Tight-fisted, provincial, and emotionally repressed. “Iowa Stubborn” as one number puts it.
He seems drawn to the place by the opinions of his fellow traveling salesmen that Iowa is a hard not to crack. Bill is a scam artist who sells people on the idea of forming a boys band. He’s left a trail of angry marks and broken hearts. This Iowa town is just the challenge he revels in. Little does he know what lies before him.
First there’s the town librarian and piano teacher Marion Paroo (Jennifer Braun) who is armed with a shelf of reference books and musical knowledge — something Hill lacks. He does have a line of talk though.
King’s Hill trades in the hard sell — his descendants undoubtedly sold time shares in the 1980s. He doesn’t have the charm of other versions of this character, but he knows how to play on the townspeople’s vanity especially when it comes to their children.
He’s just as determined when it comes to winning the heart of the piano teacher, something he does wherever he goes as a way of disarming any opposition.
Mayor Shinn (Keith Guion) who presides over River City with comic bluster, isn’t to be so fooled, especially since Hill has singled out the pool table in the billiards hall that Shinn owns as the threat to the morality of the town’s young people that his band will counter.
Our own local townsfolk bring these River City residents to life with comic gusto.
We have the bickering school board (Allen Rogel, Lane Hakel, Matthew Hoffer, and Andrew Varney) who can’t agreed on anything, before Hill brings them brought together through vocal harmony.
The mayor’s wife Eulanie (Sally Stemen) gets caught up as the leader of the classical dance troupe.
At first Marian is immune to Hill’s heavy-handed come ons. What captures her is the effect that the promise of the band has on her little brother, Winthrop (Liam Rogel). The boy has speech problems and since the death of his father has receded into a shell, much to the dismay of his would-be sweetheart and one of Marian’sp[iano students Amaryllis (Alice Walters).
Marian’s mother (Deb Shaffer) is dismayed both by Winthrop and Marian’s unmarried status.
Braun is a newcomer to the Players, and she is a marvel. She has a beautiful, soaring voice, and sure acting talents that allow her to project Marian’s slow succumbing to Professor Hill.
She shines whenever she steps forward to sing, and the score gives her plenty of opportunities — “Good Night, My Someone,” “My White Knight,” “Will I Ever Tell you,” and “Till There Was You.”
The score is full of tuneful hits, with the chorus numbers “Iowa Stubborn,” “Pickalittle,” “(Ya Got) Trouble,”“The Wells Fargo Wagon,” and , of course, “Sevnty-Six Trombones” that are the backbone of the show hitting their mark. The pit band, directed by Jennifer Jackson, is large enough to provide the right orchestral colors, especially strong trombone by Ian Elick, yet small enough not to bury the singing.
That we recognize so many of these faces from previous shows, or just from seeing them around Bowling Green, really gives this a feeling of community, which director Amy Spaulding-Heuring plays up to good effect. The action never flags, and the humor comes across as natural an unforced.
Having a couple of families where every member has a part — the Rogels and Walterses — certainly helps that hometown feel. It’s fun watching Devin, the littlest Rogel, venture out to be part of the action, then scamper back to be near his mother in the chorus.
We’ve watched other of these performers grow up on stage. That includes Bob Walters who plays Tommy, the roughneck recruited to be Hill’s organizer, and Andelus Elwazani who plays the mayor’s eldest daughter and Tommy’s sweetheart Zaneeta.
That Hill transforms Tommy from a ruffian to a leader is one of the unintended benefits of his scam.
In the last scene Tommy leads the band on stage in a sonic eruption. The parents are captivated, hearing music in the cacophony.
Local audiences will be captivated as well and will revel in this celebration of the joy music bring to our town.
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“The Music Man” will be presented Friday, Feb. 15, Saturday, Feb. 16, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Feb. 17 at 2 p.m.; Friday, Feb. 22 Saturday, February 23 at 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, February 24 at 2 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, Bowling Green, 1524 E. Wooster St. Tickets for all performances are $15, $12 for seniors and students at the Black Swamp Players’ website at the door.
