The Music Man : Promotions

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

Kind of reminds me of EDDIE THE EAGLE...

when Bronson Peary soared from the ski jump ( my favorite scene)

[jo]

From the Vanity Fair article --

When Beauty and the Beast closed, he auditioned for the role of Joe Gillis, the cynical screenwriter, for the Melbourne production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard. He didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a musical theater performer, but he couldn’t resist meeting the show’s director, Trevor Nunn, who led the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1970s and went on to stage Cats and Les Misérables. At the audition, Nunn told him to pretend he was singing to a young, idealistic Joe Gillis, who detests what he’s become. It was a nifty bit of direction, Jackman thought. After the audition, he called his agent and said, “If this guy offers me the part, I’m in.” Nunn, meanwhile, told his assistants, “I don’t need to see anybody else.”

Jackman’s run in Sunset Boulevard was cut short in 1997 when Lloyd Webber, his company then on shaky financial ground, shut down every production of the show. But Jackman and Nunn kept in touch. A year later, when Jackman was in London, he called Nunn, who was about to take over the Royal National Theatre and was planning his first season, which included a revival of Oklahoma! Nunn told Jackman to come round for an audition. “Just bring a Shakespeare and sing a song from Oklahoma!” Nunn said. Jackman met with Nunn and four associate directors of the theater. He performed a Shakespeare monologue, and the directors immediately started debating what it meant, as if they were in graduate school. When he sang “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” the directors sang along. Jackman left the meeting puzzled. I definitely got this gig, he thought, or I’ve completely screwed this up and this is the worst audition of my life.


The audition was “phony,” Nunn would later recall with a laugh. “I’d already cast him as Curly.” He just wanted to make sure the other directors were on board.

“A major discovery” is what one London critic, echoing his colleagues, called Jackman. Unfortunately for Nunn, in his view, “about 20 Hollywood film producers thought the same, and all the wonderful things I was hoping to do with [Hugh] were whisked away.”

*A Hollywood producer did see Hugh Jackman in Oklahoma!. It was XMen producer Lauren Shuler Donner who would eventually suggest his name to replace the ailing Douglas Scott who could not meet the filming schedule for the first XMen movie. LSDonner would eventually produce all Wolverine movies including LOGAN (maybe excluding the cameos).

*It wasn't just Donner who would see Hugh in Oklahoma!. Another fast-rising Hollywood mover & shaker saw and met him in Oklahoma!. That was his soon to become longtime agent & eventual friend Patrick Whitesell who would open doors for Hugh in Hollywood.

*Nunn would eventually contact Hugh Jackman for a musicalized version of GONE WITH THE WIND in London. But Hugh did not consider the offer. I did see the show and it was well-staged. However, it was more focused on Scarlett O'Hara than Rhett Butler. I didn't think Hugh would be interested.

*Nunn did see The Boy From Oz ... and he told Hugh : "This is your Lear!". Hugh has spoken in the past how he would like to do a Shakespeare play on stage with Trevor Nuun at the helm. Nunn was artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company ( where he directed Les Miserables) and the Royal National Theatre where he cast Hugh Jackman as Curly in Oklahoma!.

[jo]

The Music Man has turned into The Mutant Man

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

"Not a dancer"? Hugh says?


He already showed such promise when he became the first acting Curly to dance the dream ballet in Oklahoma! ( considered in the past to be a formidable task, in addition to acting and singing the role). In Hugh's case, his natural athleticism may have paved the way to becoming a top dancer.

Yet --



Pass forward to the four-minute mark.


Jo

[jo]

Pas de deux

[jo]

From USA Today --


broadwaydirect.com/jerry-zaks-and-warren-carlyle-on-the-joy-of-the-music-man/

JERRY ZAKS AND WARREN CARLYLE ON THE JOY OF THE MUSIC MAN
ELYSA GARDNER | JANUARY 25, 2022




Joy has not exactly been in abundant supply in headlines in recent years. But director Jerry Zaks and choreographer Warren Carlyle knew it would be the key ingredient in bringing that most American of classic musicals, Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, back to Broadway.

Having last collaborated on the exuberant production of Hello, Dolly! that earned the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical in 2017, Carlyle and Zaks became attached to Willson’s masterpiece before the COVID shutdown. So did Hugh Jackman, who signed on to play traveling salesman/con artist Harold Hill, and Sutton Foster, cast as Marian Paroo, the prim, discerning librarian and piano teacher who threatens to expose him as a fraud when he tries to start a boys’ marching band in her small Iowa town. Originally scheduled to open in the fall of 2020, the show is currently in previews for a February 10 opening at the Winter Garden Theatre.

Zaks believes that Willson — who based fictional River City, Iowa, on his native Mason City — “would have enjoyed” the new staging. “He wrote about the show being a valentine to the people of Iowa, and he wanted to make it that they weren’t being made fun of, that it was done honestly and without gratuitous schtick. I think he did see it as a joy machine; I can’t believe that’s not where it was coming from.” Carlyle, who was born and raised in the U.K., saw Susan Stroman’s acclaimed 2000 revival of the musical, “and I was struck by how American it was, being new to America at the time. It’s such a celebration of life, and as a proud citizen, someone who has chosen to make America my home, that appeals to me. And it’s a beautiful love story, and I’m a desperate romantic.”

Carlyle and Zaks spent several days at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts researching Willson’s documents. Zaks notes that Willson — who wrote The Music Man’s book, music, and lyrics — “must have written over 35 drafts of it, and we looked at most of them along the way.” While staying true to the show’s spirit of good-natured satire, the director says, “We needed to identify what made sense then that might be confusing today.”

New lyrics were provided, for example, for the giddy dance number “Shipoopi.” As originally written, the song opens with the line “Well, a woman who’ll kiss on the very first date is usually a hussy,” and contains morsels of advice, such as “Squeeze her once when she’s isn’t lookin’ / If you get a squeeze back, that’s fancy cookin’.” Musical comedy veterans Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman were enlisted to craft lyrics more in keeping with post-#MeToo sensibilities.

In contrast, Carlyle notes, lyrics that Willson had initially written for “My White Knight,” Marian’s account of the imperfect but noble Mr. Right she’s holding out for, were restored after having been cut. “It has a longer verse now, and is truer to what Meredith Willson originally wrote.” And while the song, like Marian’s others, has traditionally been a soprano showcase — Barbara Cook introduced the role, and the late Rebecca Luker played Marian in Stroman’s production — Foster delivers it in different, shifting keys that enable her to show off her powerful belt at the end. During other numbers, though, the actress reveals a graceful upper register.

While some of the keys have been adjusted, emphasizing that Marian isn’t just a delicate ingenue was part of the point. “The show is a period piece, but you have a modern woman up there now,” says Carlyle, praising Foster’s “fire and intelligence.” Zaks agrees: “Sutton brings great gusto and vitality and humanity to the part. Hugh liked her very much, and it was clear from the start that she was perfect. Because the heart and spine of the show is Harold and Marian’s love story. He’s committed to not falling in love with her; he wants to just score and leave town. She’s protecting herself, because the guys she has run across in River City are coarse and boorish. To watch her liberate herself in the course of an evening — she’s got to have a lot of spirit and soul.”

Carlyle, who has collaborated with Jackman on a number of projects, including 2011’s Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway — “I’ve been saying yes to Hugh whenever he calls, for 25 years,” the choreographer and director quips — was keen to take advantage of his leading man’s and woman’s physical facility. “For me, the biggest opportunity was having these two beautiful stars who can really move, so that I could tell the story more through dance,” he says. Carlyle figures that he and David Chase, the production’s vocal and dance arranger, created “something like 45 minutes of original music and dance” for numbers including “Shipoopi,” “Marian the Librarian,” and “Seventy-Six Trombones.”

Working with two leads who happen to be among the most famously nice people in show business — when Foster was briefly out with COVID, Jackman’s tribute to understudy Kathy Voytko during curtain call went viral on social media — was another perk. “An audience can sense that the kindness and generosity of spirit these two people have are true. And they led the company with that kindness. They have big hearts, and you see it in the DNA of the show,” Carlyle says.

Zaks notes, “Meredith Willson said that this show is about faith — faith that things will get better, that they’ll work out in the long run, and that people will change. There is redemption. He called Harold Hill a good man who does bad things, and that’s what Hugh is trying to capture, very successfully, in these awful and challenging times.”

[jo]

http://instagram.com/p/CZK7DOuLvqr

THE MUSIC MAN‘S YOUNG STARS ON THE THRILLING JOURNEY OF THE SHOW
ELYSA GARDNER | JANUARY 25, 2022


When Meredith Willson’s The Music Man was last revived on Broadway, none of the actors cast as junior principals in the soon-to-open production had been born yet. But 22 years later, Gino Coscullela, Emma Crow, Benjamin Pajak, and Kayla Teruel are all making their Broadway bows in the show — under the direction of four-time Tony Award–winning stage and screen veteran Jerry Zaks, in a company led by two-time Tony recipients and superstars Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.

Ten-year-old Pajak, the baby of the bunch, plays Winthrop, the initially withdrawn younger brother of Foster’s Marian Paroo, with Teruel, a year older, cast as Marian’s more extroverted piano student, Amaryllis. Crow, 17, portrays Zaneeta Shinn, the excitable eldest daughter of the town mayor, and Coscullela, 21, appears as Tommy Djilas, the “wild kid” who pursues Zaneeta — much to Mayor Shinn’s chagrin, but with the encouragement of Jackman’s traveling salesman, Harold Hill, who also enlists him to lead a boys’ band.

None are newcomers to performing, of course. Coscullela met the production’s choreographer, Warren Carlyle — another Tony winner — when he was featured on the latest season of the popular television series So You Think You Can Dance. Crow, a gold medalist in 2016’s World Ballet Competition, has since danced with the American Ballet Theatre. Teruel was featured in national tours of The King and I and Les Misérables, and Pajak’s credits include a short film and a Super Bowl commercial. But all concede that rehearsing for and now performing in one of the most anticipated shows of the season — currently in previews, The Music Man is set to open February 10 — has been uniquely thrilling, and challenging.

“It’s so different from anything I’ve ever done,” says Coscullela. “As a character in a musical, the end of a dance number doesn’t mean the end of my effort, so my body’s slowly getting into the groove of it — and really liking it.” For Teruel and Pajak, who auditioned before the COVID shutdown, a delay in production brought different physical demands: A height clause in their contracts stipulated that they could be replaced if they grew more than two inches … and Teruel grew three. “I was so nervous,” she says. “But I basically just had to re-audition on Zoom, and then I found out I still had the role.”

Crow, who was cast during the shutdown, got the role of Zaneeta through a series of self-tapes and Zoom calls, and didn’t meet anyone else in the company until the first day of rehearsal. But bonds formed quickly after that. “Going into work every day, seeing these huge stars who are so nice and have such a work ethic, it’s super-inspiring,” says Crow. “They’re the most humble people.” Jackman even sat next to Teruel when the actors first gathered. “I wound up writing his name tag,” she remembers.

Pajak, who had only seen Jackman in “one of the X-Men films” before landing his part, studied his film work over the pandemic “so that I could get to know his style. By the time I walked into the room that first day, I was just squealing in my body. But over time I got to know him, and now the cast is like one big family. I think even the audience knows that — they’re seeing people who have real relationships with each other.”

The younger cast members have their own rituals — among them, playing games on the online platform Roblox during their free time. While Winthrop is shy around Amaryllis at first, Pajak notes that he and Teruel made an instant connection: “We were like, ‘Oh, she’s very nice.’ ‘He’s very nice.’ She described me as her big brother on Instagram. We have each other’s back. And I consider us partners in crime too. We can get into mischief sometimes, because of how big the theatre is backstage. We’ve lost the child guardians about five times — but it wasn’t our fault; the stage is just so big.”

Though the show is set in small-town Iowa in 1912, the young principals have found aspects of their characters they can relate to or empathize with. Coscullela says of Tommy, “He’s this outsider that in the story is able to shine because another outsider shows up with the confidence he doesn’t have. He’s a supersmart guy, but he doesn’t know what he wants until Harold shows up.” Crow notes that the 1962 screen adaptation of The Music Man is “one of my favorite movies of all time, because on my dad’s side we’re from Iowa, and it was one of my grandfather’s favorite movies. I remember growing up laughing at Zaneeta because she was so quirky. I loved Susan Luckey in the movie; a lot of my interpretation is based on her.”

Granted, Crow, whose mother was born and raised in Haiti, looks different than the fair-skinned Luckey, and this is also meaningful to her. “People come up to me at the stage door and say that it’s inspiring to see somebody who looks like me onstage. It’s great to be able to make myself and my family proud and also do that for other people.” Teruel’s heritage is Filipino, and she says, “It’s cool that being Asian, with my skin tone, I can play Amaryllis. I’m grateful for that opportunity.”

Indeed, that diversity was an important factor for Zaks in casting The Music Man. “I wanted to make sure it looked more like the America of today,” the director says. And it is not something these rising performers take for granted. “I grew up in a Cuban American household, but I was born here, and what I recognize most in myself is the American development,” says Coscullela. “Now we get to take this story and make it our own. We can tell the same story, but include everyone in it, and that’s great.”

[jo]

[jo]

deadline.com/2022/01/the-music-man-broadway-hugh-jackman-critics-opening-night-1234922144/#comments

Deadline

Broadway’s ‘The Music Man’ Starring Hugh Jackman Won’t Invite Critics Before Opening Night
By Greg Evans

Greg Evans
Associate Editor/Broadway Critic

@gregevans5
More Stories By Greg
Broadway’s ‘The Music Man’ Starring Hugh Jackman Won’t Invite Critics Before Opening Night

January 28, 2022 4:48pm




Hugh Jackman
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP



In a break with Broadway custom of recent decades, producers of The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster are not inviting critics to pre-opening night previews.

Instead, critics are being invited to the revival’s Feb. 10 opening night at the Winter Garden Theatre, with reviews embargoed until thereafter. (Deadline received the invitation by email today.)

Typically, critics are invited to at least several pre-opening night previews, with reviews embargoed until opening night. Although the trope of aisle-sitters rushing to file reviews after the opening night curtain falls conjures images of All About Eve-era Broadway, the practice is thought to have generally continued at least into the 1970s, with then-New York Times critic Richard Eder occasionally, perhaps apocryphally, credited with having encouraged the switch to critics’ previews to allow reviewers more time to consider and craft their reactions.



Asked by Deadline for the reasoning behind the decision, Music Man spokesperson Rick Miramontez said in a statement, “We feel just terrible for offering dozens of theater critics premium seats to a Broadway show. I am sure they will simply loathe having to tell their grandchildren about the time they were forced to witness Broadway history in the making. Most of all, it pains me personally to imagine the burden of having to turn around a review on such a tight time table — has such a feat ever been attempted before? Well, let it be seen as the greatest vote of confidence by this production in our beloved press corps that we think they just might be up to the challenge!”


The revival was originally set to open in Spring 2020 (with now-disgraced producer Scott Rudin then attached; he’s long since left the production), but was postponed due to the Covid shutdown. Performances finally resumed this past December, although the previews were halted for a week when Jackman and Sutton both came down with breakthrough cases of Covid. Performances resumed Jan. 5.

According to a recent Vanity Fair profile of Jackman, advance ticket sales for The Music Man have reached $50 million.

The Music Man is produced by Barry Diller, David Geffen, and Kate Horton.

The production, directed by Jerry Zaks with choreography by Warren Carlyle, has been one of the Broadway season’s most widely anticipated offerings, in large part due to the A-list talent attached. In addition to Jackman and Foster, the revival of the Meredith Willson Broadway classic also stars Shuler Hensley, Jefferson Mays and Jayne Houdyshell, among others.

[jo]

As usual some of the theatre chatterati are imputing negative reactions to the announcement re Opening Night --

This was my reply on BWW --

THE MUSIC MAN Reviews


jo
Send PM
Broadway Legend
joined:5/15/03
THE MUSIC MAN Reviews
#12
Posted: 1/28/22 at 9:52pm
Tag said: "I knew this sparked a memory

Is this not the proof we need to show that Rudin is still behind Music Man?"
(Jo's Note: He was quoting a NYPost article in which Rudin's seemingly adversial relation with THR's David Rooney was quoted)



It was the same David Rooney that Rudin gave the exclusive when he announced the revival of The Music Man --

www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hugh-jackman-lead-broadway-revival-music-man-1194075/

Maybe ex-chief of Fox & Paramount Barry Diller , now lead producer, had a big say on how to handle Opening Night publicity? Some major pre-opening coverage usually seen for major film releases ( such as the Vanity Fair & the USA Today/ElysaGardner ) has started the ball rolling. Embargoes usually work for largely unseen film releases but in this case where it has been over a month in previews, social media has already been flooded with reactions to the show. It will be word of mouth that will likely help the show along?

The Vanity Fair article quoted that the advance for the show is USD fifty million. Maybe the current wave of cancellations ( primarily due to covid) have eroded a few millions from that advance, but many will come back in rescheduled dates towards the friendlier months?

I think there is a bit of Hollywood style promotion going here ( undeniably, it was the film adaptation of The Music Man which has ensured its legacy)?

Btw, in Hugh Jackman's latest social media entry, he is showing a "gag" scene for The Music Man. It was the Wells Fargo wagon coming along -- on top where the packages are shown - among them is an action figure of Wolverine showing claws on one hand and a trombone on the other. Hollywood & Broadway touch!

I will buy that action figure if that is part of the show merchandise *wink*

[jo]

[jo]

His comment re an internet backlash on the Vanity Fair article has no basis! He is just jealous that the show did not get to be produced in London. It is doubtful that the lavishness of the B'way show could have been matched over there?

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

Literally jumping with joy at a Winter Garden

http://instagram.com/p/CZUlvYeunw4

Kayla is from sunny California whose parents come from even sunnier Philippines.
She makes a snow angel in the next frame,

I remember the first time I saw snow - it was just flurries -- in snowy western Massachusetts. But at Christmas time then, it was literally a White Christmas

But on my first day of work in NYC -- I was met with a blizzard *shocked*


Jo

[jo]

I was able to get a UK edition of the Vanity Fair magazine.

*The 2 photographs spread over 2 pages each for each Leibovitz photo are truly beautiful!

*It seems they may have changed something important in the print edition - the advance is quoted here at thirty-five million dollars while the online edition which is quoted earlier here placed the show advance at fifty million
dollars.

I wonder which came out first - the print or the online edition? Which one is the correct one?

Jo

[jo]

Feb 1, 2022 5:07:28 GMT -5 jo said:

I was able to get a UK edition of the Vanity Fair magazine.

*The 2 photographs spread over 2 pages for each Leibovitz photo are truly beautiful!

*It seems they may have changed something important in the print edition - the advance is quoted here at thirty-five million dollars while the online edition which is quoted earlier here placed the show advance at fifty million dollars.

I wonder which came out first - the print or the online edition? Which one is the correct one?

Jo

[mamaleh]

Print versions of monthly magazines are normally sent to the printer several weeks beforehand. (I used to work at a monthly magazine). Web versions can be tweaked and updated as necessary, even shortly before they go online. When Vanity Fair went to print, the advance probably was about $35 million. By the time the online version appeared, it reflected a rise in the advance to $50 million.

Ellen

[jo]

www.broadwayworld.com/article/Who-Was-Meredith-Willson-20220205

Who Was Meredith Willson ?


Study up on the life and career of the original Music Man, Meredith Willson.

by Nicole Rosky Feb. 5, 2022


In just under a week, The Music Man officially opens at the Winter Garden Theatre. Created in a time dominated by the works of musical theatre luminaries like Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe and Leonard Bernstein, the musical is considered one of the greatest works of Broadway's Golden Age, though it was written by a lesser-known genius.

Before opening night, study up on the life and career of the original Music Man, Meredith Willson.

The Music Man


Who is Meredith Willson?
Meredith Willson was an American composer, who was also known for his work as a bandleader, playwright, and author. In his lifetime, he wrote three Broadway musicals and composed various songs and symphonies.

He was born Robert Reiniger Meredith Willson on May 18, 1902 in Mason City, Iowa. Willson attended Frank Damrosch's Institute of Musical Art, which would go on to become the Juilliard School. As an accomplished flute and piccolo player, he performed with John Philip Sousa's band as well as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra before moving to San Francisco, to begin working in radio. He became writing film scores in Hollywood in the 19040s and shifted his talents to the stage in the following decade.

Willson passed away in 1984 at 82 years old due to heart failure. He is buried in his hometown of Mason City, Iowa.


What is Meredith Willson known for?
Meredith Willson is best known for writing the music, lyrics and book (with Franklin Lacey) for The Music Man, which premiered on Broadway in 1957. The musical, set in Willson's home state of Iowa, was developed over eight years, during which it went through many iterations and revisions (including 22 cut songs).


The original production was directed by Morton DaCosta and starred Barbara Cook and Robert Preston. The mega-hit won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical (beating West Side Story), and went on to play for almost five years and 1375 performances. It has since been revived on Broadway in 1980 and 2000 and adapted into a 1962 film and a 2003 made-for-TV movie.

The third Broadway revival of The Music Man will open at the Winter Garden Theatre on February 10, 2022, starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.


What other musicals did Meredith Willson write?
Though Willson found his greatest success with The Music Man, he also penned two other Broadway musicals.


The Unsinkable Molly Brown opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1960 (while The Music Man was still running), where it ran for 532 performances. It featured a book by Richard Morris and starred Tammy Grimes in the title role. Debbie Reynolds would go on to play the character in a 1964 film version.


His lesser-known Here's Love, a musical adaptation of Miracle on 34th Street, played for 334 performances at the Shubert Theatre in 1963.

His final musical, 1491, was about Columbus' famous voyage to America. It never opened on Broadway, but played at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1969.


What else did Meredith Willson write?
Willson's legacy extends far beyond the Broadway stage. He composed several symphonic works, including Symphony No. 1 in F minor: A Symphony of San Francisco, and Symphony No. 2 in E minor: Missions of California.

His contributions to popular music included Glenn Miller's "You and I," "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," "May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You", and "I See the Moon". He also composed the fight songs for the University of Iowa and Iowa State University.


The Music ManWillson wrote three memoirs in his lifetime: And There I Stood With My Piccolo (1948), Eggs I Have Laid (1955), and But He Doesn't Know the Territory (1959).


How is Meredith Willson remembered?
Visitors to Mason City, Iowa can enjoy The Music Man Square- an indoor recreation of the musical's streetscape. It includes a museum that features a modified version of Willson's childhood home.


In 1987, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Willson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Juilliard School's only residence hall was dedicated to Willson in 2005.

[jo]

Reprinting this MUSIC MAN Trivia List from "The Spirit of River City"

www.spiritofrivercity.com/musicmantrivia.html

Did you know....?


*The original name of The Music Man was The Silver Triangle. Producers Cy Feuer and Ernie Martin told Willson he needed a better title. Then they were the ones that came up with The Music Man.
*Frank Loesser, the creator of Guys and Dolls, beginning in 1949, encouraged Meredith to write a musical about his childhood home, Mason City. He continued to mentor Meredith, co-producing The Music Man, and publishing the songs from the show under the company, Frank Music. Frank Music is now owned by Paul McCartney.
*The character Tommy Djilas’ last name came from a New York City Bulgarian delicatessen worker Willson knew.
*The character Marcellus Washburn—Harold Hill’s sidekick—was the name of the manager of the Mason City B.F. Goodrich tire store in 1918.
*Eulalie Shinn’s (the wife of Mayor Shin) first name came from a high school classmate of Willson’s named Eulalie Johnson.


*Rosalie Willson put Meredith Willson through the dreaded five-finger exercises on the piano. This was recreated in The Music Man with Marian Paroo teaching her student Amaryllis.
*As a kid in the winter, Willson and his friends would grab onto the runners of the Wells Fargo Wagon to hitch rides.
*At first, in The Music Man’s book, there was a spastic boy in a wheelchair, the son of a janitor, whose daily challenges were part of the story. Finally, under pressure from producers Cy Feuer and Ernie Martin, it was Martin who said the kid would steal every scene he was in, and later, the director, Morton da Costa, dropped this boy, substituting Winthrop Paroo, who had a lisp. Winthrop was based on a kid Meredith knew from his childhood in Mason City, named Charlie Haverdegraine, who had a lisp and played harmonica very well. Meredith thought his lisp helped him play the harmonica so well, so he asked Charlie to teach him how to lisp.
*The barbershop quartet in The Music Man was based on a barbershop quartet in Mason City that Meredith knew, called "The Rusty Hinges". Meredith himself was in a barbershop quartet group.


*Actors that were considered for the lead in the original The Music Man (before Robert Preston landed the role) included Van Heflin, Jackie Gleason, Danny Kaye, Lloyd Bridges, Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, Ray Bolger, Bert Parks, Art Carney, Jason Robards, Milton Berle, Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness, James Cagney, James Whitemore, Any Griffith and Phil Harris.
*There’re a couple of scenes in "The Music Man" where Harold Hill keeps Tommy Djilas busy inventing a way for a piccolo player to be able to read music while playing. The way this played out in the show is identical to the real-life experience Meredith had himself as a young man with a Mr. Bushgens, who owned a harness shop in Mason City. In 1915 he *fiddled with ways to make music readable to a piccolo player. One was an elaborate breastplate affair that tied in the back with several laces. Swooping out from the breastplate was a curved arm and soldered onto this a lyre to hold the music. Willson strapped it on and tried it at a rehearsal but as he marched it bobbed and the music came right out of the lyre. Then he tried an upright lyre on a wide leather buckle around the upper left biceps. But this cut off Meredith’s circulation and his left arm and fingers went numb.
*Along the way, Willson wrote 40 songs for The Music Man. 22 of them were cut. They include "You Don’t Have to Kiss Me Goodnight" (sung by Tommy to Zaneeta), a partner song for "My White Knight" harmonizing with "A Sadder but Wiser Girl". "Iowuh" that had a Native American beat. "Blessings" was written during the out-of-town run in Philadelphia, but was dropped. Also dropped were "I’ve Already Started to Try to Figure Out a Way to Work To Try to Get to You", "I Found a Horseshoe", "My Baby", "Tomorrow", "Chicago", and a salesman’s version of "Ya Got Trouble".
*The Willson originally wrote the tune for "Till There was You" in 1950, when it was entitled "Till I Met You".


*Rosalie’s mother’s name was Lida, as was Rosalie’s favorite sister, Lida, who lived in Topeka. The song "Lida Rose" was specifically inspired by his mother and aunt.
*Willson’s grandfather Alonzo established the first public library in Mason City. And his mother used to take him to the library on Saturday nights. Hence Marian the librarian.
*The song that the band is exhorted to play by Harold Hill in The Music Man is Minuet in G. This song was played by Meredith’s high school band. It was the only piece they could play all the way through without stopping.
*In Meredith’s book "And There I Stood with My Piccolo", he spoke of "The Spirit of ’76". Perhaps this was the origin of the number of trombones in the famous song. The painting of "The Spirit of ‘76" includes a fife player. A fife is essentially a piccolo which was Meredith’s main instrument. In the early 1950’s, Meredith did an orchestration of Frank Loesser’s "Ballad of Rodger Young"—with 76 musicians in the orchestra.
*Mason City’s first high school band began in 1912, the year in which The Music Man takes place. Meredith played piccolo in this band. The band had 2 clarinets, 2 cornets, 1 euphonium, 1 tuba, 1 snare drum, 1 bass drum 1trombone and 1 alto sax.


*The name Marian came from Marion McGuire, a senior in Mason City High School in 1912, and a cellist in its orchestra.
*The name "Harold" for Harold Hill came from Meredith’s childhood friend Harold Keidle, with whom he played in a trio called "The Jones Brothers". The trio included Meredith’s brother Cedric, who also later played in Sousa’s band.
*The Meredith Willson Residence Hall—an entire floor—opened at the Juilliard School, in October of 1990. Willson attended the school under its previous name of Damrosch School of Music.
*In 1955, Meredith Willson and Walt Disney founded The Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles (now expanded to include Big Sisters and still going strong.)
*The cast recording of "The Music Man" won the first Grammy Award ever issued, in 1959.


*In 1950, Meredith Willson wrote a fight song for the University of Iowa, which is still played to this day. In 1953, he wrote a fight song for Iowa State University that is still also still played. .
*In 1999, a commemorative stamp with Meredith’s picture on it was issued.


President Kennedy presents Meredith, with wife Rini at his side, the national Big Brother of the Year Award. Meredith and Walt Disney co-founded the Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles in 1955.

The inspiration for the song "Lida Rose"? Meredith's mother Rosalie (Rose) is on the left. On the right is his favorite aunt, Lida. Photo Credit: Joan Wyland.