A musical about a con man who questions his ways after discovering love is coming to St. Paul’s Centre later this month.
Meredith Willson’s The Music Man is a 1957 Broadway musical that has seen numerous revivals over the years, including a return to Broadway as recently as 2022.
Inspired by Willson’s Iowa hometown and upbringing, the play features the story of Harold Hill, a traveling con artist masquerading as a band organizer, selling instruments and uniforms to locals with the promise of starting a band, only to leave town once he collects the money.
However, Hill’s life of crime is put at odds with the meaningful relationships he develops while in town.
“He’s a con man and he’s doing his con, but I think he falls in love (and) he also falls in love with the community. He just finds a different way of being,” said director Jody Maltby.
“Despite the fact that he’s conning them, he’s, in fact, inspiring them,” added Frank Allinson, director of publicity. “He’s bringing a new joie-de-vivre to what they’re doing.”
More than 60 cast members from around the community, ranging in age from 10 to more than 70 years old, have come together to put on the first big musical production at St. Paul’s since before the pandemic.
“The church congregation has a long history of doing musicals … There would be one done at least once a year, sometimes two. The adults wanted to get in on it as well, so we started to do musicals with all ages, all generations, so to speak, and we’ve done quite a few of those,” said music director Blair Bailey.
“It’s turned out that they have been really well received in the community … so we’ve had lots of different musicals we’ve done over the years.”
The local production features a seven-piece band, a barbershop quartet, and a full chorus.
“There’s a lot of lovely slow ballads, and a lot of really catchy numbers, and some really good dance numbers that involve, especially, younger people,” Bailey said.
Not unlike Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Willson’s play “satirizes the characters he came to know” in his hometown, Bailey said.
“In a way, that’s what Meredith Willson, somewhat, is doing in this story of this small town in Iowa,” he said.
The Music Man has continued to have broad appeal over the years, Bailey said, with Maltby adding both her and her father have acted in previous productions of the play.
“My father was a teacher … and he was in the play, and I was in the play — together,” she said. “This time we’re doing it, my brother, both my sons, my niece and I are all involved, and one of my sons is playing the same role my dad played.”
The Music Man will run from Jan. 24 to 28 at St. Paul’s Centre, with a pay-what-you-can performance slated for Jan. 22.
Showtimes, tickets and more information may be found here.
“Blair and Jody are very modest, but they’ve done a lot of work in this type of thing, and Blair’s talent is very big,” said Allinson. “It’s worth the price of admission. It’ll be a really good show, and it’ll be a very good family show.”
