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'The Music Man' Story and Characters | The BSB Podcast · The BSB Podcast

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Welcome back theater lovers to another exciting episode of the BSB Podcast.
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Today we're rounding the Wells Fargo wagon and setting off for Mason City, Iowa in the first part of our Music Man discussion.
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However, before we dive in, like, follow, and subscribe to us @bsb.insider on all social media platforms.
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Spoiler warning, we're discussing the North American touring production of The Music Man.
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So if you haven't seen it yet and wish to go into it without any spoilers, pause this video and return once you have.
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RJ, as you know, I saw this show back when it was on Broadway with Hugh Jonk and Sutton Foster.
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And you also know that I was not a huge fan of it at the time, which says a lot about just how old that this musical is.
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It's an old musical.
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It's been revived more times than my uncle after his many heart attacks.
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No, I'm just kidding.
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We don't have an uncle that heart attacks.
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um that being said, it's been revived so many times.
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um Have you seen this show before going to see it the Fox Theater?
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Professionally, no.
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And even not professionally, one time.
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The Birmingham Village Players.
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Which was actually recent.
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This was a recent production that they did.
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It was definitely better than Broadway.
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I'm gonna say that.
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It was better than Broadway.
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I'm sure it's exactly what people expected.
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But...
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I think it's also exactly what people expect.
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It is an old, old, old, old show.
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And not to throw you under the bus, but you actually were in a production of The Music Man.
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So you have a longer history of this show than just Birmingham Village Players.
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Yeah, I did it 20 years ago, almost.
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uh And at that time it felt old.
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So if that says anything, if it was old 20 years ago, it's real old now.
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I think that, you know, we say old, but really what we mean is classic.
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This is classic golden age, silver age, maybe Broadway.
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This is like from the time of like Oklahoma and like the sound of music.
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It speaks to a very particular.
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era of Broadway tunes, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think that it does age itself when you think about the show you're going into.
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When you think about the crowd that was even there when we were there.
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Yeah, I mean, this is the era of I actually for some reason immediately got the picture of um when you walk into the Museum of Broadway and one of the first exhibits basically is
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featuring some of the musical score for this production.
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um
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You talk about the one that's all the paper and it looks like it's all crazy wild and yes.
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Yeah.
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Um, I don't know why that just so vividly came into my head, but, um, shout out to the Museum of Broadway.
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Go check it out if you haven't.
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Um, but it is, it is, it's that age old 10 minute overture.
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well, and first, first number I should say, because the first number is technically like the end of the overture.
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Um,
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I'm not sure if they're even considered two separate songs, but...
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and the set up, like that type of, we'll obviously get into the music during part two, but just the type of music in the show, it tells you exactly what kind of show it's gonna be.
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You know, it's funny that you say that about the overture, because I just want to say real quick that there is actually not an overture on the musical numbers.
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It just is considered Rock Island, which is that first one.
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But when you look at like this compared to um the Sound of Music, which we recently saw at the Fox Theater as well, both of these had that.
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Like the overture, like, OK, listeners, if you haven't been to a really classic show.
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um Or you haven't watched the sound of music in the the movies and stuff like that You have that song at the beginning to place that's like it's like a medley of all the songs
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that is to come And even though that they're including this in Rock Island the music band has that like it's it's starting you off it's kind of a tradition to all the different
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melodies and Tonally the different pieces that we're gonna come back to that we're gonna hit um And There is a long
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a long bit to it.
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I want to say that this is one of the shorter ones that we've seen, but there is, when you start talking about a classic show, you have that overture that just lasts forever.
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Yeah, I mean, and I guess to be fair, it is only three and half minutes.
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But it is the longest three and a half minutes.
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um
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Because it's, I think because it's just slow.
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Like it's just this like grandiose like, and as we've spoken previously, those.
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Like, I'll say entrance songs.
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Even if it's not formally considered an overture, the point of it was to get people into their seats while nothing was happening on stage.
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So, I mean, and still applicable today, because how many times do you have the person from the front row who doesn't show up on time, the show starts, the music's...
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happening and then you know a line of six people go all the way to the front um to sit in the front row so it it does what it's supposed to do but it doesn't actually truly add
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literally anything except a buffer
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What I love about this story, everybody, is that RJ is talking about our actual experience at the Music Man when we had a line of six people during Rock Island that were walking to
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the front, not even the front, but in front of us and stopped during that intro music, uh but into the first song as well.
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So it's funny that as soon as you said that, I was like, wait a second, that happened to us, RJ.
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You are just...
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Speaking of experience of seeing the music man
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But it does work.
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Like it does work.
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That's exactly like that first song.
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There isn't always a lot happening in there.
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is setting up of the story.
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But even what's interesting, and again, we'll talk about the music in part two, but I have to mention this now because I'm going to forget, because I always forget when I say this
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part one.
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Rock Island starts with most of the song not being about anything.
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And it's the very end of the song that's actually important to introduce you to who Harold Hill is.
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It does give you that extra six to seven minutes to get your butt in a seat.
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and to not interrupt the show, which people definitely took advantage of um for this production that we saw.
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Yeah, and I'll say...
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Truly, it doesn't do...
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I mean, we get like a little bit of...
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prequel, right?
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Like...
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Here's the setting, like here's what you're about to jump into.
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I guess helpful for those who like, because we no longer have traveling salesmen, or at least like our version of them are...
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just salespeople online or on the phone or something like you're not getting a door to door person very often anymore.
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Whereas in that time and space it was like constant.
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So someone, maybe even like, I'd say I'm familiar with a traveling sales person, but my sister who is eight years younger than I am would probably have zero idea.
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So in the sense that it is establishing just even a vocabulary around that in order for us to understand what this individual will be doing, that I can understand.
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um
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But I think for those of us that like already kind of had an idea, it was kind of like, what, where is this?
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Why are we sitting here for an additional four minutes?
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And for those who don't know, RJ grew up in the, uh, the, the, the town that was outside of the city limits.
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Because what do you mean you know what a traveling salesman is?
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As I pull my mic closer to my face, we didn't have traveling salesmen down in the city.
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ah We did I mean it like to a different degree like again evolution of time right but like and Again, I'm for sure aging myself and I might sound like a lunatic to anyone who didn't
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experience this in their childhood But like we had the this is city too, but we had the Schwann's truck
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and they technically are traveling salesmen.
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Like they just, there's a magazine that you order from basically.
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And then this truck would come and deliver it.
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It was all frozen food and deliver it to your house.
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And that was like before, this is before delivery.
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This is before DoorDash.
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This is before, like, this is like the in-between of the old school, like our parents' generation who got like their milk delivered fresh every day, right?
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And they're in their newspaper.
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And then us or this generation, like Gen X, Gen, not Gen X, Gen Z, who like can get a meal delivered.
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That's the in-between.
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Okay grandpa, with your-
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Listen, so us city folk down here, we didn't necessarily have that.
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We had Girl Scout Cookie Deliverers.
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We had religious salespeople in a way.
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Shout out to the Book of Mormon.
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Go see it.
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Celebrating 15th anniversary on Broadway.
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But we didn't have necessarily traveling salesmen.
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Except I remember one vividly, which we're going to go on a tangent real quick, people.
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Thank you for joining me here today.
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We had a vacuum salesman one time come in and demonstrate to my mom how to use this vacuum.
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She had no intention of buying it, but they just needed to show her it.
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Other than that, traveling salesmen were like, at least in my part of the city, we didn't have traveling salesmen.
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So it's interesting that you're like, yeah, I grew up, you apparently, you know, uh a little house on the prairie over here had traveling salesmen.
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But we did necessarily did not.
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Well, and that's funny, like, and maybe I'm just, again, this is like early childhood.
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So this is like the nineties, but yeah, they're like mag, like the only way to get like a magazine subscription, like was a traveling salesman or actually my mom and I were just
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talking about.
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uh, dictionary and books were traveling sale people and you, you bought, or was encyclopedias and you had to like buy so many, um, and they would come back and sell you,
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you know, this letter through this letter or whatever the heck.
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Um, and actually a lot of my childhood library was from traveling salesmen.
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My mom bought like the not Disney books, Dr.
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Seuss books.
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Um, so yeah, I mean, it feels like forever ago, but it was what?
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30 less than 30 years.
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What I love about this too is that you're making me feel like I'm younger, but I'm older than you.
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But I think that it's just a different way of living.
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know, it's just that we had, you know, we had a Kmart that was literally two minutes on the road where maybe you had to drive a little bit faster.
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Not faster, well maybe faster, but you drive a little farther for a Kmart.
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So for you, traveling salesman made sense.
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It came right to your door.
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And in fact when door dash started coming around it almost was like a foreign concept to us would be like the people can just deliver things to your house You know, that's not
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Amazon like So I'm gonna give you that I'm gonna give you that like this is a different This was a tangent But I think it sets the scene for this show and just like how you're
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right the show is Rock Island really does kind of set what what is the traveling salesman?
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Also who the hell Harold Hill is
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and how is he impacting kind of the story of what's going on in this little town in Iowa, the middle of nowhere, know, America's America.
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And so I can, I can, I'm just, agreeing that I understand where you're coming from, even if you are old.
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I mean, hey, I still don't think Oxford has DoorDash, so...
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Some things are just stuck in time.
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I went to Oxford once, as you know, and the town is literally looks like it could be from the Music Man.
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It could.
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It's got a old...
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It's not even considered a town.
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It's called...
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It's considered a village.
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That's how small it is.
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But...
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But all of this to say, proof that these things can still very much exist just depending on location and accessibility.
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Look at you, look at you, bring it a full circle.
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That was a full circle moment.
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And I think that it does bring me to the themes of the show.
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When I was trying to think of the themes of the music man, I think this speaks to the age of the show.
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And by George, if there's a different theme, anybody please let me know.
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All I could think of was love.
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I feel like that's the whole premise of this show.
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Like there is kind of a little bit of like,
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good versus bad, who's good, who's bad, who's a con man, because obviously Harold Hill is a con man.
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But I feel like the point of the music man was love, which feels rather, again, outdated, old, classic Broadway.
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Is there a theme for this show that jumps out to you other than love, or am I just am I missing something here?
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Yes and no.
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I would say there's a couple different lenses that you could take from the show.
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One of them is love.
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Or it's like variations of love.
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So when I think of love, of course, you have like the primary characters who fall in love.
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Okay, that's old news.
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Then you have the idea of love in a familial sense and growth and development character wise based on love that is shown to each other.
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And then like the whole community, the whole town, the whole city, whatever we want to call it, what happens when
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they start to love.
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Maybe not even...
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maybe themselves, maybe each other, maybe the things that they're doing, which is not...
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when we're introduced to them, that's not a core value that I think really exists.
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I'd actually like to really jump on that point because I think you are correct.
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When I was interviewing Patrick Blashill who plays the mayor, he was talking about how these Iowans are like stubborn and like strong headed and don't like change and like all
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these really harsh feelings.
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And so when you think about it that way, it is truly about them who like not to be religious here, but love thy neighbor, you know, like really
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build a community, they're finding things they like about each other, and in the way they're developing love for people they don't know.
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They end up forgiving Harold for his actions, they end up wanting to just have something bigger and to be more connected.
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And so I do think that is the love that truly stood out to me because, you know me, I could take or leave the romantic love.
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That's great for the storyline that it is, it is a big chunk of the story, but I think the...
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the piece that you can really chew on here is what's happening with the community and the love that they're building for each other, which is the piece I think is so universal and
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timeless about the show and why people really need to maybe watch the music man and get that because we could use a little bit more of love in the community.
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Yeah, I think...
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I mean, there's so many different facets to it really because you could break it down per the individual, right?
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Like even if you were to look at Harold individually, like you're not a con artist because you feel good about yourself.
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You know what I mean?
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Like typically you're doing that because there's probably some issues that are, are need to be addressed, but you aren't addressing them.
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ah and yeah, the I don't.
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I don't think people want to like the plot point around Harold and Marian because it's toxic AF, right?
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Like his, the push and the pull, um the avoidance, that like kind of storybook love, it's, is not real.
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Right?
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Or it's not healthy.
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He like, I just magically fall in love with a stranger overnight because he was nice to my brother.
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which is very, again, that's so old school Broadway in a way of just being like the, I fell for you overnight because of this thing.
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it is very, I can see why that was appealing back in the day.
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I can see why some people are still have an appeal to that.
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Cause that is very much like white knight on a horse and like coming in to save the day.
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like there's, beauty to that kind of story, but I don't think that it's reflective of like the type of
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I think it was reflective for the time in which it was developed for the people who were in that time.
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I mean, this is a musical that was on Broadway in 1957.
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And we have to admit that the world was very different back then.
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And we're telling a story from the early 1900s, know, like 1800, no, 1912.
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Like these are women who were being ostracized for being like Marian.
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She's, she's wrong for not having a husband.
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She's cold and callous and she
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She has all these different things about her that I was wrong because she doesn't have a man.
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So the idea of a man coming to save you is so appealing in that aspect.
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But truthfully, I was like, that's not the love that I want.
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I want the love of me and my neighbors can get along, and they're going to protect me, and we're going to do this together.
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And they're going to forgive me when they make mistakes, and I'm going to forgive them when they make mistakes.
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Because that is what we truly crave and need in today's society.
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Well, and ironically, think when this was created, it was not the norm, right?
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Like for a woman to be like, I don't want that guy.
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Or I don't want a guy.
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Um, and then listing out the expectations that she had for a man.
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Like you don't do that, right?
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It was the man's choice.
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He had his pick of the flock and you just did it because he had money.
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Um.
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because you had no rights as a woman or minimal rights as a woman and so all of your rights were dependent on the man that you married.
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So for Marian's character to be like, yeah, my white knight, my white knight is not that, like he's just actually a kind human being, that was probably like, like they're
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expressing in the show, right?
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Like it actually,
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ties, I'd say, quite well to one of our favorite Disney films, Beauty and the Beast.
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Belle.
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I mean, Belle is the same with Gaston, right?
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Like, there's this expectation.
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He is the pitiful of masculinity.
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uh I'd say the difference here, obviously, being we're going from con man to
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semi-decent or I won't even say semi-decent human because I still think Harold is obviously a jerk, but the redemptive quality is the fact that he analyzes that and
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acknowledges it and obviously we don't get to see beyond that because the show ends but
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Again, in a time where men would have never been like, this is my fault, I did a bad thing.
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It's like turn of the century.
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But I hear what you're saying, but this is my view.
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He admits wrong but never admits that he's sorry.
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Especially for what he did to Marian.
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No, yeah.
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I- well, exactly.
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and that's where I don't think it's a complete redemption story by any means, because obviously we leave off way too early to know, characterize what he becomes.
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I think it alludes to a redemption arc based on like, the play is harder to follow because you don't get like the cut-to scene, right?
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Like it's this like weird, we all hate him, and...
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now they're playing instruments badly, and now everyone's in band uniforms and it's all over.
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Like, I'm assuming that time has gone by based on the film.
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I'm assuming that time has gone by.
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We are now a well-established band, and he, again, is doing something else with his life aside from being a con artist.
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But those are all assumptions.
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None of that is actually given to us in the show itself.
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I did look it up to see if there was a specific time jump, and they do not acknowledge that.
22:17
Um, so that's interesting.
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Also interesting is that there's in the movie, there's a song, no, there's actually a song called my white night.
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I didn't realize that because I barely, I had just.
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When you made that reference I was like, is he referencing the song that's literally in this show?
22:36
Oh, okay.
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So in my defense, everybody in my defense, we did happen to have a break at that point and I ran for the bathroom.
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So clearly my mind did not connect to that was named with a song.
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Um, and for that, I am sorry, but Hey, that was just a really interesting coincidence that we love.
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Um, but I do think you're right.
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Like there's obviously a
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And I'm not trying to be like, he should apologize.
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I mean, he absolutely should, but that's, that's neither here nor there.
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I think that just, it tells you the time of the story.
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I do think it also really brings in the other thing that was taught to me is like good versus bad and like, who's really the villain and who's, who's the good guy.
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And the thing I like about the music man is that they never actually paint a specific picture on like, who is villainous, who is bad.
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Everybody's kind of got some gray.
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Everyone's kind of.
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got a little bit of a little bit of both.
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Harold himself is not like necessarily a great man.
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uh He's kind in many ways, but he's also screwing over a town and he's done it multiple times.
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Marian is just very sharp and also cuts some corners when she decides that she likes him.
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You have the mayor who is just kind of a hard ass, but he's funny.
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You know, there's, there's like not the, the takeaway is that like, think that there's not really a villain of the story, but everyone's just kind of morally gray, depending on the
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situation, all in this kind of name of like searching for good, bad love.
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And like, that's kind of the undertone of this of like, can you say Harold Hill is a bad person?
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Some would probably argue yes, but like he's done bad things.
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Does that make him a bad person?
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And I feel like I could do that with every single person throughout this entire show.
24:31
Yeah, the personality versus...
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like what they're actually doing.
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Because arguably...
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Some of the I'd say stereotypical least favorite characters from this show I think are Like Charlie Cowell Even though like he's actually a good guy like he's actually just
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trying to do his job and uh Save salespeople from getting bad name, but he's gross right so we don't like him
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even though he was trying to actually do a good thing.
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But like nobody, I don't think I've ever, like no one likes him.
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No one like walks away and is like, that Charlie guy, he was really trying to do some good.
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uh They actually prefer Harold most of this, I would say.
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Because like you said, he is kind, he's doing shitty things.
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But if you take away the shitty things, what's there?
25:28
Right, he's hot.
25:30
I mean, that's obviously something they play up in these shows, RJ.
25:33
Don't even act.
25:35
They make Harold Hill an attractive person because they want you psychologically to assume he is a good person.
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And that's why salesmen tend to be attractive people because they can do shitty things and get away with it.
25:48
Sorry, I didn't mean to just say he was hot, but also Elliot Andrews is hot.
25:51
Like, let's be honest here.
25:52
I'm not gonna sugarcoat that.
25:55
So we all know why Brian went to the show.
25:58
No, I went there to enjoy it with you and your family.
26:02
We had a great time.
26:03
But I think that when you're saying it's right, like when you compare him to Charlie, Harold is attractive.
26:10
When you look at what happened on Broadway, Hugh Jackman is objectively attractive.
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um And that is on purpose.
26:20
I say it that way, RJ, because Hugh Jackman is not always my type.
26:23
Leave me alone, okay?
26:23
uh
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know this, but I'm just hoping that everyone watching or everyone listening, if you can't see Brian's face, it's all over his face that he does not feel that way.
26:35
Um, but like there is a, like there's a clear definition of like Harold's good because he's good looking.
26:43
And that's part of the storyline, even though they never talk about that.
26:46
He could talk his way out of any situation.
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But if he looked like Charlie, which I don't think Charlie's naturally not attractive, but when you look at him, you're like, Harold could talk his way out of it because people find
27:00
him conventionally attractive.
27:04
Yeah, yeah, and I think...
27:07
There is, I mean, when you think of the parts where he is avoiding needing to give his credentials for like the entire show, that is, it's based on his ability to sneak by,
27:19
right?
27:19
Or to distract or what have you.
27:23
And how often would that happen had he not been conventionally attractive?
27:31
Correct.
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That would not have happened at all because he doesn't come off slimy even though he's absolutely an earthworm in those moments.
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Like that is truly what it is.
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And like you see Charlie and Charlie looks sorry, sorry to the man who plays Charlie, Michael.
27:47
I don't mean it this way, but he looks sweaty.
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He looks like he's greasy.
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He looks like he's disheveled.
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He looks.
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And so right off the bat, people were like, we don't trust this man so much.
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The only person that really trusts him really is the mayor.
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You know?
28:04
I just had a epiphany moment.
28:06
I'm not sure why these two things um seem like they're in the same category because they're not.
28:13
ah Maybe it's just the costuming, but Charlie reminds me of the beetle.
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And it could just be like the bowler hat, but um just the whole look and feel.
28:29
And the scene with Marian, right?
28:31
Where he's when he's a little bit he's he's gross, right?
28:35
He's like I'd like to do a lot more Dot dot dot Okay pretty forward Whereas yeah, we have we have the sweet talking Harold who's like I would never I could never I just love you
28:53
If we're going to use Sweeney Todd for a moment, and we're going to talk about the Broadway one specifically, regardless of what cast you saw, you saw the one with that was
29:03
Aaron Tveit I saw both.
29:05
I also saw with Josh Groban.
29:08
The person they have to play the Beadle is not as attractive as Sweeney.
29:14
And therefore people think they're second attractive in between me, but Sweeney's cutting people's throats and putting them in meat pies.
29:20
Like, like he's clearly actually not a good person.
29:23
And it's the same with Harold, not to this extreme, but like this feeling of you can get a lot more by being attractive.
29:32
uh And I also feel really bad having this conversation because you did play Beadle and I'm trying to be like, look at you, you slimy dog.
29:39
But like there is a difference in those moments, you know?
29:43
Honestly, the word that like made me initially think of it, for some reason, is sweaty.
29:48
Like, I just think of like even the hair in the grease.
29:53
Like yeah, both grease balls.
29:57
But one is meant to, yeah, one is meant to be the charmer and float through life.
30:04
And one is meant to be the bad guy.
30:10
So, of our cast and crew, without the exception of their singing, I do think it's interesting that when I look at this list, there's three names that I keep coming back to
30:23
for just standout performances.
30:26
I mean, they're all good.
30:27
Hats off all of them.
30:28
um Obviously, Harold Hill, we've already gone over that, I don't need to cover that one again.
30:35
Elliot Andrews, thank you very much for your service.
30:38
um
30:39
ah Marian ah I loved Elizabeth.
30:43
Her performance as Marian was just top-notch.
30:47
I also found myself just laughing my ass off with Patrick as the mayor.
30:51
I do think that he was very...
30:54
He was the perfect straight guy for the comedy, and the comedy came off perfection.
30:59
But again, this is really talented cast.
31:01
There's a lot of dancing.
31:02
There's a of things we'll talk about part two.
31:03
But of the performances, do...
31:06
These three really stood out to me.
31:07
uh
31:09
And Harold Hill's number one.
31:10
Anyways, RJ, so what really stands out to you about this cast and their performances?
31:16
on the flip side
31:17
Hill's the best.
31:21
I would say Marian is my top.
31:23
um
31:25
I knew it.
31:27
You were so enamored with her performance.
31:32
I could see it on your face while when we were there.
31:34
I, to be honest, it took a minute.
31:39
Like it took a minute for me to realize what she was doing, like why she was making the acting choices that she was making.
31:45
But then when we got to the end of act one and going into act two, I was like, oh, like all of the decisions leading up to that point were intentional.
31:57
um So that this felt different.
32:02
So was sneaky, but like in a good way.
32:05
um
32:07
Much like the music man.
32:09
That's true.
32:10
I also really liked her mom, Savannah, playing Mrs.
32:15
Paroo um She also, I mean the accent was perfection.
32:22
And just, it was just the little things.
32:26
Like her comedy, the nuance of her comedy was really good.
32:31
uh That was probably my number one for comedy.
32:36
um
32:38
Yeah, for sure, that really strong comedic.
32:40
Because again, it's kind of like the Mayors where it was like so subtle at first.
32:44
You were like, I'm laughing because it almost doesn't hit you for like the splitest of a second.
32:52
Yeah, it was just, didn't need to be...
32:56
Cause I'm not sure that like many, I can only think of actually like one or two lines that were made as jokes, but it was the subtleties of the movement, the way that they were on
33:09
stage or just the physical acting.
33:13
um That sometimes in like...
33:17
Having done this show, would say I think that's a role.
33:21
Like some of these roles just get buried because you are so heavily leaning on Harold and Marian.
33:27
But um still obviously very much heavy on the acting side.
33:33
Because they are singing less.
33:35
I mean, they're singing more in the ensemble.
33:37
They're singing less solo-wise.
33:39
I'm not even sure if Mrs.
33:40
Paroo has any solo lines, but...
33:43
um
33:45
Yeah, acting wise.
33:47
I do think that I also need to give a shout out to two other people, two other actors, two other characters.
33:52
Marcellus was also hysterical.
33:55
Paul Urola was just great in that role, was a standout.
33:59
don't remember remembering Marcellus in any other show, so I don't know if there's something different he was doing with his performance of this, but there was something
34:07
that was almost, again, kind of that cheesy goofball that was really cool.
34:13
And also Dylan Patterson as Winthrop.
34:16
That lisp that he does the entire show and keeps it up and just like the energy he has, I get it.
34:22
He's a young kid, but exceptional too.
34:26
Yeah, agree.
34:27
um Marcellus, I was curious if that was a director decision or an acting decision, just the characterization of that role, because I've never seen it played so loud before.
34:40
Like I've always kind of seen him as...
34:43
the sidekick that's relatively quiet, like that's kind of staying in the shadows to kind of cover for Harold, and in this it seemed way more out, loud, proud, like just leaning
35:03
into it.
35:04
For some reason it gave me Book of Mormon.
35:06
um
35:09
It reminded me of Josh Gad a lot, you know, in the performance.
35:13
Yes.
35:14
That's exactly I was like, are they twins?
35:19
They could be.
35:20
They could be.
35:21
And so with that though, RJ, we are running out of time.
35:24
However, listeners, stay tuned for part two of our The Music Man discussion.
35:28
Before you go, let us know if The Music Man is one of your favorite musicals in the comments.
35:32
Thanks again for joining us here in our box seats.
35:34
Until next curtain call.