Helpful Hints for Theater Audiences

As an audience member at the theater, F rom the Director’s Notebook YOU are part of the show! Just as you see and hear the actors onstage, they In small towns, appearing. I am deeply interested in can see and hear you in the audience. there are tracks small towns. They dot the American To help the performers do their best, to live your life on and landscape, and they are at the heart of please remember the following: arena’s page it’s shocking when American mythology. study guide anyone moves out of Arrive at least 30 minutes early. these predetermined In The Music Man, Willson has captured Visit the restroom before the show starts. C ontents “Ya got trouble, Right here in River City.” tracks. Some of the most narrow- the essence of a small town in the Before the show begins, turn off your The Play – Harold Hill, The Music Man minded people come from small towns middle of America. cell phone, watch alarms, pagers Meet the Playwright and other electronic devices. If and some of the most visionary. As big Musical Style cities in America are growing, many Molly Smith, anything rings by accident, shut it off immediately. Making a Small Town of these towns are shrinking and dis- Arena Stage artistic director Save food and drinks for the lobby. CONsider This There is no eating or drinking inside Wells Fargo Wagon the theater. Three Big Questions Walk to and from your seat - no Additional Resources The Wells Fargo running in the theater! Do not talk, whisper, sing or hum. Do not use cell phones for calls, text Thl e P ay Wagon is a Comin’! messages, pictures or games. Welcome to River City, Iowa – that is n 1852, Wells, Fargo & Co. was found- Keep your feet on the floor, not on unless you are an outsider. ed to provide western America with the seat in front of you. banking and express service, mean- Avoid getting up during a show Con artist “Professor” Harold Hill I because it distracts your neighbors arrives by train, bringing lots of smooth ing rapid transit of gold and other valu- ables. In 1858 it created the Overland and the performers. If you must leave, talk and trouble with him. Posing as wait for a scene change, then exit a traveling salesman, he’s swindled Mail Company, a network of trains, stage quietly and quickly. coaches, steam ships and riders to bring entire towns throughout the mid-West, goods from eastern cities to the rest Performers appreciate enthusiastic and River City is his latest target. He applause rather than whistling or gets the town’s cold shoulder until he of the country. People in small towns shouting. relied on ordering from catalogues (and convinces them that their town is on the The Wells Fargo wagon Cameras and videotape are road to the depths of degradation. The many do today!), and goods of all variet- prohibited because they are ies were delivered by the Wells Fargo Wagon, now the company’s symbol. distracting to the performers. only way to save it and its children’s souls is to start a boys’ band. The Enjoy the show! townspeople fork over their money to Hill and wait with excitement for the expensive instruments to arrive.

The whole town is hoodwinked by Big Questions Hill…except for Marion Paroo, the 1. What is the American small town yesterday and today? town’s librarian and music teacher. 2. How do status and role affect how people interact in communities? When Marion tries to expose Hill as a 3 3. How do the arts affect communities? conman, he decides to woo her and save his hide. 1101 Sixth St., SW Additional Resources Washington, DC 20024 Music is changing River City. Will Hill’s Phone: 202-554-9066 ways and Marion’s heart change too or Books/Plays Fax: 202-488-4056 will Hill skip town before the jig is up? Meredith Willson: America’s Music Man by Bill Oates But He Doesn’t Know the Territory by Meredith Willson Written & edited by 100 Years on the Road: The Traveling Salesman in American Culture by Timothy B. Rebecca Campana Spears Research contributions from Arena Th e Music Man Stage literary staff & volunteers Book, Music and Lyrics by Meredith Willson Film/Television Illustration by Douglas Fraser Story by Meredith Willson & Franklin Lacey Music Man photos by Scott Suchman The Music Man, Warner Home Video: 2011 Directed by Molly Smith Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, Walt Disney Home Entertainment: 2003. Major support for this program is provided by The Simpsons: “Marge vs. The Monorail,” 1993 Visit www.arenastage.org the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation. Choreography by Parker Esse for more information on Now playing in the Fichandler Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the On the Web Arena Stage productions Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in May 11 – July 22, 2012 The Music Man Square: themusicmansquare.org and educational opportunities. part by the National Endowment for the Arts. m eet the L Music Style CON sider This .– ome people complain that The sounds and rhythm of a train are playwright characters in musicals go from created by a train car of traveling “Arrest of the Confidence Man Stalking one second to suddenly salesmen in the song “Rock Island.” For the last few months a man has been traveling about bursting into song. Piano student Amaryllis’ piano exer- the city, known as the “Confidence Man;” that is, he cises lead into and accompany “Good In writing The Music Man, Willson Night, My Someone.” Willson also uses would go up to a perfect stranger in the street and, being challenged himself to make the shift speech like an instrument. Harold Hill, a man of genteel appearance, would easily command from scene to song less abrupt. He fast-talking salesman that he is, often an interview. Upon this interview he would say after wanted the music grow out of the dia- chants or speaks more than he sings some little conversation, “Have you confidence in me to logue and rhythm of the scenes. In in songs like “Trouble.” trust me with your watch until tomorrow;” the stranger his memoir about writing the show, at this novel request, supposing him to be some old Willson writes “I had developed an This style of music has inspired cur- abiding conviction…that in a musical rent composers. Stephen Sondheim acquaintance not at that moment recollected, allows obert Meredith Willson was comedy the song ought to materialize uses rhythmic speech-singing in his him to take the watch, thus placing ‘confidence; in the born in Mason City, Iowa in out of the dialogue. I was really get- musicals – for example, “Your Fault” honestly of the stranger, who walks of laughing and the R1902. At the time of his birth ting Iowa-stubborn about…the way…to in Into the Woods. This style is also other supposing it to be a joke allows him so to do. In Willson was the biggest baby ever bridge dialogue and song.” seen in the opening number, “Belle,” this way many have been duped…” born in Iowa, weighing in at 14 lbs. of Beauty and the Beast, in which the and 7 oz. Growing up in a music- Everyday sounds per- T his 1849 article from the “Police Intelligence” music uses the rhythms and speech of section of the New York Herald describes the loving household, Willson started meate and even moti- everyday life. l arrest of William Thompson, whose crimes playing the flute and piccolo in vate Willson’s music. ricks like selling snake oil to cure illness or selling caused the term “confidence man” to be created. high school and continued instruments then skipping town before folks realize his studies at the school It took Willson they’ll never arrive have a long history in America. that would later become the T 6 years and over They are called confidence tricks – scams in which T raveling salesmen made their living by seeking buyers Juilliard School of Music. a person is cheated after his or her trust has been 40 drafts to write in assigned areas called “territories.” They sold their won. The people, like Harold Hill, who run the scams goods to businesses or public institutions rather than As a professional flutist, he The Music Man. are called “confidence men,” which has since been toured with John Phillip Sousa’s shortened to “con men.” They are known for smooth individuals. They rarely had inventory with them, instead band and played with the New talking and their ability to convince their victims (marks) carrying samples so buyers could place orders. Con men York Philharmonic Orchestra. to hand over money for questionable goods or services. like Harold Hill gave travelling salesmen a bad name and During World War II Willson Those who were caught were often run out of town or made an already competitive and difficult job even harder. became a major in the US Army. tarred and feathered. l

Willson was a music director for radio and television and a composer and lyricist for films and musicals. His songs have been sung by Frank M aking a Small Town Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Gene iver City, Iowa is inspired by Meredith Willson’s Autry. Among Willson’s 400+ songs hometown of Mason City, Iowa. In Arena Stage’s is “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like production of The Music Man, it could be any small town Christmas.” R in America. His Broadway musical The Music Willson’s characters are familiar archetypes: the blustering Man won Willson Tony and Grammy mayor, the gossiping women, the outsiders, and the prominent awards in 1958. Its film adaptation businessmen. Costume designer Judith Bowden helps us garnered an Academy Award for The Music Man is so readily recognize these characters through their clothing. music. He went on to write the popular that it has been musicals The Unsinkable Molly spoofed and adapted on A school gymnasium or town multi-purpose building is often Brown and Here’s Love. many shows, including the town meeting place. Set designer Eugene Lee has The Simpsons, Sesame designed a floor for the Fichandler (Arena Stage’s theater-in- He was appointed to the National Street and Family Guy. the round) resembling the floor in these buildings. Flags and Council on Arts and Humanities by other hints of Americana create the effect of a patriotic small President Lyndon B. Johnson and One of its songs, “Till town during the Fourth of July celebration. l awarded the Presidential Medal There Was You,” was cov- of Freedom by President Ronald ered (recorded) by The archetype – a recurring type of character, setting or story that Reagan. Outside his work in the Beatles in 1962. is easily recognizable arts, Willson was a member of Big Brothers (now Big Brothers/Big Activity: Choose an everyday moment, like taking Metro to school, Activity: If you could only make one simple set to embody multiple locations in your town or city, what would it Sisters of America). and compose a song inspired by the rhythms, conversation and look like? Render (draw) how you would represent it on stage, paying attention to color, aesthetics and detail. Remember: actors will need space to perform. Willson died in 1984. l sounds of that moment.