“The Music Man is an astonishing creation. It is shot through with genius.”
— Jay Nordlinger
“I couldn’t make myself any plainer if I was a Quaker on his day off!”
— Mayor Shinn, Rive City, Iowa
It’s been 73 years since the United States added Alaska and Hawaii to bring us to an even 50 stars on the flag, but it was February of 1912 when Arizona became the 48th – just one month after New Mexico joined at No. 47. The previous 46-star flag had been in place only since July 4, 1908, and the two new states meant a new flag for the nation.
Tradition held that regardless of the date of the admission of the new state or states, the new flag would go into use the following Fourth of July. The delay allowed government buildings and private citizens to acquire a new flag, and for everyone to begin to display them not only on the same day, but on a day when people would generally fly a flag, and when they would be displayed at ceremonies, parades and celebratory exercises.
It was for that reason that composer Meredith Willson chose to set his wildly successful Broadway musical “The Music Man” on July 4, 1912. Willson was born in Mason City, Iowa, in 1902 and had already achieved substantial success as a composer before he set to writing a musical. He’d received Academy Award nominations for film scores in 1940 and 1941, hosted radio programs in 1942 and 1946, served as a regular game show panelist, and had major hits as a songwriter with “You and I,” “May the Good Lord Bless You and Keep You,” and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.”
Although he penned four musicals, three of which appeared on Broadway, Willson will forever be remembered for his Tony Award winning “The Music Man,” which debuted in 1957, was turned into a film in 1962, a TV movie in 2003 (starring Matthew Broderick), and has had two Broadway revivals, the current one with Hugh Jackman in the lead role of Harold Hill. The original show won six Tony Awards all together and ran for 1,375 performances.
In addition to its raucous and memorable music numbers, hilarious dialogue, and fantastic dance scenes, the show stands as a kind of time capsule to American history. The bumbling Mayor Shinn repeatedly tries to break into his own rendition of the Gettysburg Address (and is always immediately interrupted), musical numbers like “Iowa Stubborn,” “Rock Island” and “Ya Got Trouble” have so many period references that it’s fascinating to look them all up. These musical numbers are almost the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” of their day, for how much they can teach you about life in the Midwest in that time period.
Fortunately, you don’t have to travel to New York to see “The Music Man” on the stage. Delaware’s own community theater, Arena Fair, will be performing the show this coming weekend, June 21-23, at the Willis Theater on West William Street. And, although the show is set in a sweltering July – Mayor Shinn (who I have the great fortune of portraying in this production) even notes that it’s so hot that the only way to be comfortable is to “walk around in your drawers all day” – you won’t melt in the theater, even though it’s supposed to be in the mid-90s all week. That’s because the kind folks at Suburban Natural Gas, Willowbrook Christian Village and Emergency Plumbing, Heating and Air have come together to sponsor Arena Fair’s season, the provision of special air conditioning for this space and, in the case of emergency, provide the temporary A/C units to keep Willis nice and cool despite the sweltering heat outside.
We hope you’ll head on over to arenafair.com and come see the show next weekend because, as Harold Hill says in the show, “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make today worth remembering.”
David Hejmanowski is judge of the Probate/Juvenile Division of the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas, where he has served as magistrate, court administrator, and now judge, since 2003. He has written a weekly column on law and history for The Gazette since 2005.
