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The Music Man

"The Music Man" is returning! It will be at the Kennedy Center, with Jessie Mueller front and center. So it's important to review some facts:

-"The Music Man" famously defeated "West Side Story" for the Best Musical Tony.

-People think Sondheim wrote the first rap in musical theater history (for the Witch, in "Into the Woods"). But Sondheim himself says this is wrong: The first musical theater rap, he argues, comes at the start of "Music Man," with "Rock Island."

-It's been said that there are only two stories: I go on a journey and A stranger comes to town. "Music Man" makes this literal; the title character is quite literally a stranger, entering the insular community of River City.

-A story needs a detailed setting, and Willson is careful to make Iowa vivid and almost fairy-tale-esque: "Oh, there's nothing halfway about the Iowa way to treat you, when we treat you, which we may not do at all. There's an Iowa kind of special chip-on-the-shoulder attitude--we've never been without--that we recall...." Whether or not this is fair to Iowa, you have to give credit to Willson for transporting you to another world. (I also think of Willson's portrait of Iowan small-mindedness when I think of libraries: The ladies of River City are scandalized when the new librarian starts purchasing the works of "salacious" writers, such as "Chaucer" and "Balzac.")

-The love story in "Music Man" resembles "Much Ado about Nothing," or the "Sky" plot from "Guys and Dolls." Marian believes that the title character is not for her; Marian believes she wants someone who will discuss "what makes Shakespeare and Beethoven great...." Harold Hill may have some surprises in store for her.

-A story has to show us people changing, and MM famously gives us both the "melting" of Marian and the I'm ready to be a surrogate dad transition that Harold Hill goes through. In case we are unaware of how the two title characters have changed, Willson makes the change explicit in one of the show's more famous numbers: "There were birds in the sky...but I never saw them winging....There were bells on the hill....but I never heard them ringing....There was love all around....but I never heard it singing....No, I never heard it at all....Till there was you....."

-Marians throughout history have included Kristin Chenoweth, Barbara Cook (of course), and Rebecca Luker. Mueller is going to knock this one out of the park. Stay tuned...
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