The Music Man is set to begin previews on September 9th, 2020 and set to open on Broadway on October 22nd, 2020. The musical is about a con man, Harold Hill, who convinces a town to buy uniforms and instruments for the boys in the town band. He promises to train the young boys and other individuals who sign up on learning how to perform in a band. Though the town is convinced, the local librarian and piano teacher of the town, Marian Paroo, is not charmed by him and recognizes that Harold is lying.
Through teaching her younger brother how to get over his speech impediment, the two main characters start to fall in love. The Music Man was initially performed on December 19th, 1957, winning five Tony awards including the biggest award of that season – Best Musical. The Broadway cast then featured Robert Preston as Harold, who also was Harold in the movie version of The Music Man–Marion was played by Barbara Cook. The musical, which garnered many fans from the theater production, was also made into a 1962 film. The film cast included Robert Preston, once again as Harold Hill; alongside him was Shirley Jones as Marian Paroo. The Music Man was then revived once more into a television movie with Matthew Broderick and Kristin Chenoweth as the two main characters.
The show looks to become a revival shortly with two very famous actors and actresses respectively to play the two main roles. Sutton Foster, a Tony winner, who is known in the theatre community for her roles in Thoroughly Modern Millie and Anything Goes is set to play Marion. Just announced recently in the news was that Hugh Jackman, known for a lot of musical roles including The Greatest Showman and the movie musical Les Miserables was also cast as Harold Hill. I think the casting was done great as they both are incredible Broadway performers on their own but together as a duo, I think there will be a massive following because of their portrayal in this revived musical. I can’t wait to see how this show comes together on The Great White Way!