By MATT ZWYYER
Waterville Playshop PR Trustee
Sometimes we like to root for the bad guy, and in this patriotic-to-a-fault musical, the audience gets to do just that. Waterville Playshop revisits nostalgia with “The Music Man,” harkening back to a more innocent time filled with marching bands and ice cream. With our modern lives full of stress and busy schedules, this musical provides an opportunity to re-explore beloved and quirky characters, barbershop quartets, and even some of America’s first rap music set to a train trip.
Performances are scheduled for Friday and Saturday, April 21 and 22, at 8 pm, and Sunday, April23 at 2:30, at the Maumee Indoor Theatre. Tickets are on sale now at www.watervilleplayshop.org. Tickets are $18 or $20. They will also be available at the door.
This will be Playshop’s fourth time producing this musical in its 70-year history, and it is seemingly more beloved each and every time.
Partly wicked, partly funny, and completely touching, “The Music Man” is family entertainment at its best. Meredith Willson’s six-time, Tony Award-winning musical comedy has been entertaining audiences since 1957 and is a family-friendly story to be shared with every generation.
“The Music Man” follows fast-talking traveling salesman, Harold Hill, as he cons the people of River City, Iowa, into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys band that he vows to organize – all this, despite the fact that he doesn’t know a trombone from a treble clef.
His plans to skip town with the cash are foiled when he falls for Marian, the town’s librarian, who transforms him into a respectable citizen by curtain’s fall.
Pictured above are Harold Hill (Brad King) and Marcellus Washburn (Perry André); these two characters unintentionally have reunited in a long con after several years living separate lives.
Harold is trying to convince his old assistant to give it one more go, now that fate has brought them back together. Directors Tammy Fitch and Joe Barton guide these two, as well as 49 other stellar actors in this fine cast. Tasha Rothert is vocal director, Nicole Spadafore is choreographer, and Elaine Parrish is the assistant Director. Both the cast and creative team extend their “Iowa way of greeting” and ask that join us for this downright American show.
Don’t miss your chance to see it!
Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI)
