The Manchester Enterprise
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Cast, crew prepare for opening day
By Daniel Lai, Editor
PUBLISHED: June 21, 2007
After six weeks of rehearsing, set building and costume designing, the cast and crew of Meredith Willson's "The Music Man," are set to take the stage for the premiere performance tonight.
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"It's absolutely remarkable the amount of participation that has gone on for this production," producer Peter Knox, said. "We have over 100 people in the cast not counting the orchestra."
Knox said cast and crew members have been hard at work in the final days before today's premiere putting the final touch-ups on scenes, songs and sets.
"The town of River City is being assembled as we speak," he said Monday. "With the size and scale of a production like 'The Music Man' in a small town, it couldn't have been done without all the volunteer help."
Knox said the final days leading up to the performance, have been filled with feelings of excitement and stress.
"Overall, everyone is pretty excited," he said. "All the pieces are falling together nicely and everyone has a lot of confidence in the director, who very calmly puts the final pieces together."
Jackie Palms, one of the play's actresses who plays the mayor's daughter, said it's incredible to see how quickly cast members were able to memorize their lines and develop their characters.
"I think back to when this all started a little over two months ago, and it's amazing to see how far we've come," she said. "Back in April at our first rehearsal, the entire cast read the script cover to cover, and it took almost four hours to get through. We had a few weeks of rehearsals where certain cast members would work on their scenes together, the chorus would practice their songs and then the groups of kids would learn the choreography to a song - but it wasn't until the end of May when we actually put everything together that we realized how much work went into this.
"It was really incredible to see how hard other cast members had been working, because each one of us was so focused on our own lines and scenes," she said. "When we did another read-through like in the beginning, and we added costumes and sets and a live orchestra to the script, it still took us close to four hours to get through, but there were so many more amazing elements involved."
Palms said one of the hardest aspects of rehearsals was keeping actors and actresses in the mindset of 1912.
"Our language today is much different than it was in 1912, so saying things like 'Jeely Kly!' and 'Simply agog!', were somewhat strange," she said. "For weeks and weeks we rehearsed in the Nellie Ackerson gymnasium with our modern clothes and cell phones and PS2's, awkwardly attempting to recreate the early 1900s time period. But once we moved into the high school auditorium and saw the town of River City, Iowa on stage, changed into our costumes, left our technological devices in the car and started thinking about this early time period, the spirit of 'The Music Man' inhabited itself within us."
Palms said Knox and his wife Linda, the director of the musical, helped the performers stay in character even when they weren't on stage.
"Linda and Peter Knox have done an incredible job not only encouraging us amateurs to dig deeper into our capabilities as actors, but to really explore and learn as much as we could about the time period, the state of Iowa, the people who lived back then and all the tiny details that went into the daily lives of Iowans back in 1912," she said. "As a result, the kids backstage are playing games that children played in this time period, down to the bloomers, our costumes are almost 100 percent accurately designed, and the way we speak now has even been slightly affected. The idea is to stay in character throughout the duration of the show, so that while we're backstage waiting to go on, we're still the same characters we portray on stage."
Knox said that the musical has several interesting assets that make it unique when performed in Manchester, including ubiquitous pianos, family ties to the original characters of "The Music Man," and an upright orchestra.
"There will be three pianos on stage," he said.
Music Director Carol Palms said the addition of the orchestra integrated into the set and not below in a standard orchestra pit, is an exciting new feature.
"There are so many interesting and clever things in this show," she said. "Let's start with the fact that our River City, Iowa skyline contains the orchestra - right up there on the stage. Twelve musicians are housed, three dimensionally, within the buildings of this sleepy little Midwest town. River City seems at first so quiet and dull, but the truth is, the music has been there all along, just waiting to be waken up by a new face in town."
Knox said the size and scale of the production has not been without some challenges.
"This show has been the largest one I have ever produced," he said. "It has come with it's challenges, mostly scheduling conflicts, but overall it has been a joy."
Knox said one of his favorite aspects has been working with a diverse age group.
"I've worked with just kids and just adults before. In both instances, that has been fun," he said. "Here we have kids and adults working together and it's fun to watch a 20-year-old and a 70-year-old working together to make the play come alive."
"The Music Man" premieres today with 8 p.m. performances today, Friday and Saturday, and a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday at the Manchester High School auditorium. Advance tickets are on sale at the Coffee Mill and at the Manchester Market. Tickets can be reserved by calling 428-7716 or ordered online at www.riverfolkarts.org.
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