Traveling salesman Harold Hill admits he plays billiards, and he’s proud to use his “judgment, brains and maturity” to score in that game.
But since the youth of River City, Iowa, recently gained access to a pool table as opposed to a billiards table, he predicts they’re about to take “the first big step on the road to … degradation.”
As you listen to these lyrics in the song “Ya Got Trouble,” which Harold sings to the townsfolk of 1912 River City in the musical “The Music Man,” you might think: “Huh? What kind of crazy distinction is that?”
The song continues with more odd distinctions, as Harold suggests the pool table will lead young people to gambling, dime store novels, “beer in a bottle,” and just about every evil in between. It’s enough to “make your blood boil,” he hints to the adults in the crowd.
The song shows what a clever salesman Harold Hill is, said actor Elliott Andrews, who will portray the title character when Broadway in Scranton brings the musical “The Music Man” to the Scranton Cultural Center for four shows June 12-14.
“To appreciate it, you’ve got to look at the lines right before it,” Andrews said, noting that Harold Hill isn’t giving a canned sales pitch. Hill has only just learned there’s a new pool table in town, and he uses that information to compose a patter song, inventing a need and convincing the townsfolk he can fill it.
What Harold offers is musical instruments, uniforms and instruction in a boys’ band, guaranteed to keep the kids busy and out of trouble.
But Harold intends to take the money and never deliver what he’s promised. The one person in town who sees through him is Marian “the librarian” Paroo.
“She definitely realizes (he’s a con man),” Andrews said in a telephone interview.
Still, Marian falls in love with Harold — and he falls for her as well.
“Despite the method that he takes to do it, he does help the town,” Andrews said. “The result is quite beautiful.”
In a monologue Marian has, with her younger brother Winthrop listening, Marian remembers Harold promised “fireworks and cymbals and big drums and feathers.” And he did deliver something good, “in the way that every kid walked around this summer.”
“She falls in love, if I can speak for her, in the effect he has on the community,” Andrews said.
Thanks to Harold, the actor continued, the adult residents of River City also became happier, perhaps unrecognizable from the “stubborn … stuck in their ways … rude and not welcoming” people they once were.
“It shows the change one person can make,” the actor said. “You can make a change in your workplace, your church, your line in the grocery store.”
As he travels the country with the show, Andrews said, he’s noticed many theater-goers are grateful for a chance to see an old-fashioned musical from the “Golden Age” of musicals, like this one, which won five Tony Awards after its 1957 Broadway debut.
” ‘Music Man’ persists,” he said. “The jokes are excellent. The songs leave you tapping your toes. The heart of it is still there. This is what we all trained for, and I’m so grateful to be part of it.”
Nowadays, “The Music Man” is most often performed by community theaters and school groups, Andrews said, adding that as the tour travels the country, “we’ve met many sixth-grade and sophomore-in-high-school counterparts of ourselves.”
Here’s another fun fact: “Music Man” composer and Iowa native Meredith Wilson also wrote the fight song for the University of Iowa athletic teams, and when the musical tour played in Iowa City, members of that school’s Hawkeye Marching Band showed up to loan their talents to opening night.
“The Music Man” will be at the Scranton Cultural Center, 420 North Washington Ave., Scranton, at 7:30 p.m. June 12; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. June 13, Tickets are available at scrantonculturalcenter.org or through the box office at 570-344-1111.