New Challenge Round Starts with the Music Man

Well, Christopher was right, it was indeed Meredith Willson's the Music Man that we went to see yesterday. Kevin, being the ever resourceful fellow that he is, also did a good job confirming this guess. I think since I read my Challenge small print from last fall and found that the game was suppose to end by the beginning of June, I'll start the counter over. I guess I made it too hard, since no one managed to win, despite a lot of really worthy efforts. Both Christopher and Kevin now have 15 asisaid-2k5 points (I'll keep “lifetime” tallies as well, but for this round, we'll start from scratch).

This was my second time seeing the Music Man within about a year, the last time being at the Muny at the end of July 2004. I'll talk more about the reprise in a post in a few days, along with my promised Mame review.

Just so that you know I wasn't in a strange mood, let me take out the hints from my last post and identify them:

• Not even a copy of Captain Billy’s Wizbang could have beaten it! The publication Captain Billy's Wizbang is one of the things Prof. Hill points to as an indication of child in the grips of the kind of trouble that arrives with a pool table. He references it in the song “Ya Got Trouble.” Oh, ya got trouble. Terrible, terrible trouble!
• No there where no white knights in the play or angels with wings. “A Lancelot” or an angels with wings are what Marian Paroo says she is not looking for in her white knight in the song “My White Knight.” Trivia fact: My White Knight was replaced by “Being in Love” in the 1962 movie version of the musical.
• The great Creatore or John Philips Sousa. Both of these musical savants appeared, among other greats, in the same town, on the same day, when 76 trombones led the big parade. At least that's what Harold Hill says happens in the segue from “Ya Got Trouble (Reprise)” into “76 Trombones.”
• ”I don’t believe I caught the name of the play.” I don’t believe I dropped it. One of the salesmen immediately after the opening song (“Rock Island”) asks Hill for his name after the good “professor” says he'll have to try selling in Iowa sometime (another salesman has just been discussing how bad Hill is, how he'd like to get his hands on him, but how Hill would never bother coming someplace as hard to sell at as Iowa). When one man says “I don't believe I caught your name,” Hill replies “I don't believe I dropped it,” as he reveals his suitcase, with his name on it, to the audience.