When “The Music Man” first begins at the Byers Theatre in Sandy Springs, you know you’re in for a treat.
“Rock Island” is the famous opening number from “The Music Man,” performed by a group of traveling salesmen aboard a train. It’s performed without music (barring maybe percussion in some productions), and it’s completely talked through in rhythm as the salesmen discuss whether the modern conveniences of 1912 are rendering their profession obsolete.
It’s an unconventional opening number for an otherwise rather conventional show; quick, quiet and specific instead of big and brassy. If these traveling salesmen aren’t able to get the audience on their side during “Rock Island,” that spells trouble for the rest of the performance.
Luckily, the cast of City Springs Theatre Company pulls it off without a hitch. The production currently running at the Byers Theatre kicked off Sept. 6 and will run until Sept. 22. Directed by Artistic Director Shuler Hensley (who also starred in the recent 2022 Broadway revival as Marcellus Washburn), It’s a delightful production featuring wonderful choreography and lead performances that make the show’s weakest link – it’s romance – work.
The titular music man is Harold Hill (played by Billy Harrigan Tighe), a con man who makes his living pretending to be a boys’ band leader, traveling from town to town selling instruments and uniforms, and then leaving before he teaches the boys a single note. His newest project is River City, Iowa, but the music teacher and librarian Marian (Scarlett Walker) sees right through him and aims to thwart him at every turn.
“The Music Man” has plenty of famous ballads – “Goodnight, My Someone” and “Till There Was You,” to name a couple – but this production is strongest in its big ensemble numbers, especially when it comes to Sara Edwards’ choreography. The dancing in numbers like “Shipoopi” and “Marian the Librarian” in particular is clean and energetic, each performer really having fun with the cheekiness of the moves. “Marian the Librarian” is a real stand out, in which Harold tries to woo Marian as he urges the library patrons to erupt into chaos. What follows is a dynamic number that ebbs and flows with partner, small group and big group break outs as Marian’s attempts to settle everyone down go unheeded.
There’s not really a weak link in the City Springs ensemble, but there are a few standouts. As Eulalie Shinn, the River City mayor’s flighty, theatrical wife, Courtenay Collins had the audience in the palm of her hand. A running gag where Harold Hill turns the town school board into a barbershop quartet in order to avoid answering any real questions about his background worked like a charm every time, and the quartet in question – Claudio Pestana, Alec Beard, Nick Morrett and Kyle Robert Carter – sounded pitch perfect.
Hill’s ability to charm every single townsperson and weasel his way out of every situation is essential to making “The Music Man” work. Harold Hill is a scoundrel and a con artist, make no mistake, and Tighe has that slickness in spades. But he also has the affability necessary to make Harold someone to root for. At every moment of the con, Tighe uses his body language and expression to make every character feel at ease around him – and more importantly, to make the audience feel like they’re in on the joke.
Every character, that is, except Marian – at least, for some time. The biggest flaw “The Music Man” has always had is the issue of its romance. Marian clocks Harold Hill as a liar from the second she sees him, yet she eventually gives up her vendetta against him because he helps her little brother Winthrop (Jackson Arthur) overcome his lisp and social anxiety – never mind that Harold doesn’t actually spend all that much time with Winthrop, and still cons an entire town out of a ton of money for a promise he never intends to keep. The character of Winthrop adequately serves as a catalyst for Marian starting to change her mind about Harold, but he has never functioned well as the lynch pin to their relationship – he’s just not in the story enough, and Harold’s kindness to him doesn’t change the reality of what’s going on.
And yet, Walker’s take on Marian, and Tighe’s response to it, makes that romance work the best it can. Walker is sardonically funny as Marian throughout, and her turn toward Harold is less of a change of heart, or of seeing some good in him she couldn’t before, than simply her deciding to do something for herself for once. How Harold has treated Winthrop might start her on that path, but it’s her attraction to Harold and her unwillingness to continue to sit around and wait that really propels her forward. She doesn’t know that he’ll make the right choice in the end. She just decides that she doesn’t really care. Harold’s reaction, then, becomes that of wanting to be better for someone who loves him regardless. The palpable chemistry between Walker and Tighe just seals the deal.
Tickets for City Springs Theatre Company’s production of “The Music Man” can be bought online.
