‘The Music Man’ @ Winspear (ATTPAC’s ‘B’way at the Center’)
Photos courtesy of Big League / ATTPAC
—Martha Heimberg
Even if you were never in a marching band, you’re sure to feel the allure and energy in all those high voltage horns and drums and bright uniforms in the touring company of The Music Man, presented by ATTPAC’s “Broadway at the Center” series at the Winspear Opera House.
Meredith Willson’s musical tale of a fast-talk con man who converts to good citizen won five Tony Awards when it premiered on Broadway in 1957, and many more in the show’s two major remountings in 1962 and 2021. There’s a little John Philip Sousa in all of us — at least in people who love musical theater. Directed here with a deft touch by Matt Lenz with precise musical direction from Thomas Fosnocht conducting a 10-member orchestra, the show fills the house with yearning melody, rousing ensemble numbers, and delicious counterpoint.
Particularly when much theater and film is reflecting the very real political and environmental
catastrophe of today’s daily news, a look back to a simpler time is less a self-indulgent
nostalgic fix than a booster shot of good will. People have always been eager to stop arguing and maybe sing a little four-party harmony. Everybody on opening night certainly cheered and clapped for the quartet singing “Lida Rose” and “Good Night Ladies.”
When Harold Hill (heartthrob-handsome tenor Elliott Andrews) gets off the train in River City, Iowa, he sets about convincing these doubting Midwesterners to buy musical instruments and uniforms for a boys band — to avoid the moral ruination of the town’s youth at the new pool hall. “Trouble” is here, according to Professor Hill, “with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for pool.” Willson’s audacious, playful rhymes are right up there with Gilbert and Sullivan and Dr. Seuss when it comes to make his point and getting a giggle in one clever match-up of sound and meaning.
Harold’s plan to catch the next train out once he’s pocketed the money is foiled by Marian Paroo (feisty, exultant soprano Elizabeth D’Aiuto), the town librarian who teaches piano the old-fashioned way and questions the credentials of this so-called musical innovator and his “think method” of teaching kids to play the shiny trombones and trumpets and flutes their doting parents have ordered. Marian’s widowed mom (charming, comic mezzo Savannah Stevenson) fears her picky daughter will end up a spinster. God forbid. Her little brother Winthrop (hapless, adorable Dylan Patterson) likes the idea of joining an imaginary band. Also outstanding are Patrick Blashill as the grumpy (if easily flattered) Mayor Shinn, and Emmanuelle Zeesman as his stagestruck wife Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn.
Of course, love marches in and catapults the two would-be antagonists through a series of wonderful songs and dances to a happy — and musically raucous — ending. What fun it is to hear the songs they all sing in that two hours. There’s “Goodnight, My Someone” and “Seventy-Six Trombones” — sung as solos and in counterpoint.
“The Sadder-But-Wiser Girl” is hilarious and endearing, at once: Harold says he starts to grin “when a gal with a touch of sin walks in.” And talk about hometown vibes: the rhythmic and verbal repetitions of “Gary, Indiana” make me want to move there, and he rousing “The Wells Fargo Wagon” had people applauding, just imagining the days when the treasure you ordered was practically a communal celebration — a far cry from today’s silent, stealthy Amazon deliveries. And the lovely “Till There Was You” was a classic hand-holding love song — even before the Beatles covered it.
The entire 30-member ensemble is terrific. While Andrews’ ardent and agile Harold Hill jumps on table tops and leaps from chair to chair in a big number like “Madame Librarian”, the ensemble delivers choreographer Joshua Bergasse’s elegant, athletic moves with ease and grace. Everybody can sing, and apparently most went to ballet school, or trained as gymnasts. Nobody has a problem leaping straight off the floor into a split five feet in the air, or landing back flips, never mind spinning around two dozen times on one toe. The two young boys next to me sat rapt watching the multiple handsprings.
Ann Beyersdorfer’s detailed scenic design and Lisa Renkel’s handsome projections and videos evoke a small town, from canopied Main Street shops to lamplit Victorian porches reminiscent of Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post covers.
Santo Loquasto designed the gorgeously detailed Edwardian-era costumes for Broadway and for the current tour. The quartet members wear straw boater hats and pinstripe suits in pastel colors. Women wear lace-trimmed dresses and gloriously feathered hats. Of course, the handsome band uniforms are red, white and handsomely striped.
Spring break is upon us — and The Music Man has something fun for everybody in the family. Not to miss—but move fast!
WHEN: March 12-14, 2026
WHERE: Winspear Opera House, Dallas
WEB: attpac.org
