The Arizona Theatre Company began the new year with a brassy bang in “Music Man”, whose star swindles a small town with a fake marching band. Trouble comes in the form of a local librarian, who threatens to shatter his scheme with the promise of something real.
Director David Ivers conducts his talented cast and crew so deftly that it’s easy to travel back in time to River City, Iowa in 1912.
The play begins with a chorus of sharply-dressed salesman singing about Professor Harold Hill. “Rock Island” is a slick, speedy song with a frenetic cadence and wacky vocabulary that sets the stage for the rest of the play’s clever wordplay.
By the time Charlie Cowell (John Hutton) and the Travelling Salesman are done, the Professor himself (played by Bill English) announces that their song has convinced him. “It’s time I give Iowa a try!”
With suave charm, funny mannerisms, and a bold singing voice, English’s Harold Hill is hard not to root for. Whether he’s punching out parts of a cap to transform it into a conductor’s hat or convincing the mayor’s wife that the limp from her bunions is graceful, his physical humor never fails to arouse laughter.
Hill’s love interest, the suspicious librarian Marian Paroo, has an angelic singing voice that steals the spotlight whenever she opens her mouth for a song.
Manna Nichols’ Marian is prim and proper, with her pretty yet stuffy dresses from costume designer Margaret Neville. Although she’s a tough teacher with high standards, Marian’s soft side takes the stage in “My White Knight,” a love song Nichols sings with a soulful, operatic voice that trembles with emotion and soars throughout the auditorium.
One of the most standout performances comes from Danny Scheie as Mayor Shinn, whose style of speaking is hilariously strange.
Playwright Meredith Wilson’s writing is already whimsical and old-fashioned, but Scheie takes his character’s colorful lines and delivers them with such zany passion and dizzying cadence that his character takes on an entirely new dimension of hilarity. Every time he spoke, I found myself smiling.
Another scene-stealer is Nathaniel Wiley, who made his professional acting debut as Winthrop Paroo, an insecure young boy whose lisp keeps him quiet. Winthrop’s friendship with Professor Hill inspires him to speak up and sing, resulting in the hilarious “Gary, Indiana,” in which he lisps his S’s so fiercely the audience bursts out laughing. The song is accompanied by Mrs. Paroo (Peggy O’Connell) and Marian.
From barbershop quartets to syrupy sweet love songs, “Music Man” is full of nostalgic songs with impressive staging and live music from the orchestra pit. Choreographer Jaclyn Miller keeps the pacing fast for spectacular ensemble numbers such as “Shipoopi” and the iconic “Seventy-Six Trombones,” while captivating the audience with slower songs such as “Till There Was You” by Marian and Harold.
A much-loved American classic, “Music Man” blared from the Herberger stage with passion, enthusiasm and technical talent through the Arizona Theatre Company. It was a treat to watch the award-winning Broadway musical come to life with such a talented hand.
For questions, contact the reporter at sosulli2@asu.edu.
