“The Music Man,” starring Tony award winners Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster closed its Broadway revival earlier this year. Now the show, with Naples’ Charlie Blum in the role of confidence man Harold Hill and Bridget Scott as Marian Paroo comes to Southwest Florida – with a twist. After running at Fort Myers Theatre on San Carlos Boulevard Oct. 5 – 15, the musical will travel to Marco Island for five shows at the Arts Center Theatre Oct. 18 – 21.
For the Marco Island Center for the Arts, it’s a dream come true. Executive Director Hyla Crane has been working on collaborations with several area community theaters since taking over the former home of the Marco Players last year.
“I’m excited to bring Fort Myers Theatre’s talent and energy to the Arts Center Theatre as we expand our brand by purposefully and intentionally becoming both a producer and a presenter of quality theatrical shows,” said Crane.
Lead actor Charlie Blum, who also sits on the board of the Marco Island Center for the Arts, helped facilitate the collaboration.
“I was fortunate to see one of their shows a few years back, which was “A Chorus Line.” A friend of mine was the Musical Director. I was quite impressed to say the least,” said Blum.
Blum told Crane about Fort Myers Theatre. She was similarly impressed after seeing “Beauty and the Beast.” Fort Myers Theatre co-founder Jeremy Kuntze offered to bring two shows to Marco, including “The Music Man” in October and Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” in December. Luckily, the Arts Center Theatre had open dates during both of these timeframes.
“So, it gave us an opportunity to, one, fulfill our mission at the art center, and two, for the community to then see a musical. It worked out for everybody,” said Blum.
With a book and score by Meredith Willson, Fort Myers Theatre’s production of “The Music Man” is directed and choreographed by Robin Dawn Ryan, who attributes the musical’s longevity to its iconic music, rousing dance numbers, and America’s enduring fascination with fast-talking hucksters.
“The Music Man is about a con man by the name of Harold Hill, who decides to stop off in River City to see if he can con the people there into starting a boy’s band. He has no knowledge about how to do a boy’s band. He doesn’t know the first thing about playing an instrument, but yet he stops here in this very uppity, snobbish type town,” said Ryan.
“But somehow, he manages to con everyone, and in the end of the whole show he ends up conning himself as he falls in love with not only the piano teacher, but he falls in love with the town and the people in it.”
The musical grabs the audience from its opening number “Rock Island.” Here, a gaggle of traveling salesman sing-talk at one another in rhythms that chug and hiss along with the train they’re riding on. Along with a change in folks’ buying habits resulting from the introduction of the automobile, they also have something to say about Harold Hill.
Never heard of any salesman Hill
Now he doesn't know the territory
Doesn't know the territory?!?
What’s the fellow’s line?
Never worries bout his line
Never worries bout his line?!?
Or a doggone thing. He's just a bang beat, bell ringing,
Big haul, great go, neck or nothin’, rip roarin’,
Every time a bull's eye salesman.
That’s Professor Harold Hill, Harold Hill
What's the fellows line?
What’s his line?
He's a fake, and he doesn't know the territory!
Look, whaddayatalk, whaddayatalk,
Whaddayatalk, whaddayatalk?
He's a music man
He's a what?
He's a what?
He's a music man and he sells clarinets to the kids in the town with
The big trombones and the rat-a-tat drums,
Big brass bass, big brass bass, and the piccolo,
The piccolo with uniforms, too with a shiny gold braid
On the coat and a big red stripe runnin’
He may not know the territory, but Hill does know how to exploit two commodities that will never go out of style: fear and vanity, which he brings to bear on the town’s new pool table.
Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do now wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a pool table in your community.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in River City.
And the town buys in, lock, stock, and cracker barrel.
Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool,
That stands for pool.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City,
Right here!
The show is filled with great ballads, but none is more lyrical than “Good Night My Someone,” sung by Bridget Scott in the role of Marian Paroo.
Director Ryan is quick to note that “The Music Man” is also a dance-heavy show. “It has tons and tons of dancing in it. Not even I realized how much dancing it was until I started putting it together,” said Ryan.
If you want to see the show that has everybody talk, talk, talking, you better lock in your tickets now. Fort Myers Theatre seats just over 100 and the Arts Center Theatre on Marco Island only accommodates 83 people per performance. Go here for play dates, times and a full cast list.
MORE INFORMATION:
· Lead actor and Marco Island Center for the Arts board member Charlie Blum is former President/CEO and talent buyer for the Star Plaza Theater, the 3,400-seat concert palace on the outskirts of Chicago. During a career spanning more than 40 years as a concert promoter, talent buyer, theater executive, television producer and artist manager, he worked with some of the top acts in America, including Frank Sinatra, Liberace, Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson. But he was seen in the role of entertainer in September of 2021, when he performed Sinatra’s Great American Songbook on Marco Island.
· Blum has played the role of Harold Hill previously, and is excited to reprise the character for Fort Myers and Marco theater-goers.
· “Charlie Blum has played Harold Hill several times,” notes Director Robin Dawn Ryan. “He’s played it on a national tour all over the country. So, it’s kind of, I think that for him, having so many different directors and everybody’s different vision on it, now I presented a new one. Also, I pushed him into dancing too. He’s never really been pushed into dancing. I said, ‘Of course Harold Hill has to dance!’ I think he’s enjoying that part of it as well.”
· Ryan excels as a choreographer and feels that athletic dance numbers involve the entire cast and audience in the storyline. “There’s movement throughout [the musical], and I think that they all enjoy doing that because then everyone feels like that they’re a part of the show. They’re just not singing the songs or saying the lines.”
· Part of the charm of “The Music Man” is watching Harold Hill’s transformation from master manipulator to a guy who really cares. In fact, he’s shocked to discover that he’s developed real feelings not only for Marian, but for the town too.
· Moving the show to Marco comes with a unique set of challenges. The Arts Center Theater stage is much smaller than the one at Fort Myers Theatre, so Ryan will need to re-stage the show to fit the tighter confines of the theater. “When we’re in Marco, some of the [cast] is going to be dancing in the aisles and up with the audience a little bit more,” notes Ryan. “It’s going to take some adjustments, but nothing that they can’t handle. And they’re all very excited about going to Marco and doing that.”
· “Doing the show at two locations is a great concept and I don’t know that it’s been done here or in other cities for that matter, but it makes a lot of sense because it also gives an opportunity for the cast to experiment and experience something above and beyond their usual show of doing six performances and it closes,” says Blum, “Now they get to go somewhere else and do it. It’s almost as if they’re on tour in a sense and it works out for everybody and it alleviates the need for us to have to do the casting and producing our own show. This show just comes in with a day of technical rehearsal and we go.”
· Arts Center Theatre is located at 1089 N. Collier Blvd. in the Marco Town Center.
· Marco Island Center for the Arts Executive Director Hyla Crane suspects that the curiosity factor alone is like to generate sold-out performances in the Arts Center Theatre. “How are we going to fit a large-scale musical into our little 83-seat theater?”
· Crane is also excited to bring Music Man to Marco as “it enables us to keep theater going on Marco, where the community has expressed the desire to have its own community theater.”
· Crane has worked in theaters for more than a dozen years, co-founding the Elm Shakespeare Company in New Haven, Connecticut, and working at Long Wharf Theatre as well.
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