'The Music Man' is coming to Pekin!

By: 
Staff Writer Kate Wehlann

Harold Hill thinks he’s pretty slick. The con man arrives in River City, Iowa, with his professor of music persona in place, promising to keep the town’s youth busy and out of trouble by starting a band. The townsfolk eagerly find the money to pay for uniforms, lessons and instruments and Hill plans to abscond with the money, never to be seen again, after the materials arrive and are distributed. It’s a grift he’s pulled in the past. He doesn’t see a reason it shouldn’t work this time, too.

However, there’s someone who sees through him — Marian Paroo, the town’s uptight librarian and music teacher. The gossipy housewives of the town keep her at arm’s length and some blame her for their children’s daliances because she encourages the young people in the town to read works of such scandalous authors like Chaucer and Balzac, so she doesn’t have many friends. Her younger brother, Withrop, a sullen boy struggling with his father’s death and a lisp, has perked up considerably since the arrival of The Music Man and his promises of a band, though, so she struggles with her distrust of this traveling salesman and her joy at seeing her brother happier than he’s been in two years.

It doesn’t take long for Hill to start falling for Marian, but a group of other traveling salesmen are looking to expose him, so he has a choice to make. Does he leave the town tuneless? Or does he risk everything to change his ways and be a man worthy of Marian Paroo?

It’s a question the Eastern High School Theatre Department looks to answer in their performance of “The Music Man” this Friday and Saturday.

Tickets cost $10 for general admission and tickets for children 5 and younger are $4. Shows will be at 7 p.m. Friday, March 15, and Saturday at 1 and 7 p.m. On Saturday at 1 p.m., children’s tickets are free with a Silly Sock donation and the purchase of an adult ticket.

Brianna Medlock, 13, Borden, began the “Brianna’s Silly Sock” program and has been collecting socks to donate to those in need since she was 9. Lindley said Medlock is in the cast of “The Music Man” and hopes this will bring in a lot of donations for Medlock’s sock drive.

Tickets for the show can be purchased online at our.show/ehs-musicman. You can join the Eastern High School Theater Department group on Facebook to stay up to date on the drama department at the school.

Category:

Please Login for Premium Content

Site Login Help

For current subscribers to The Salem Leader and The Salem Democrat, you can login to the site using the following information:

Username: Please use your full email address associated with your account
Password: Please use your last name. Passwords are case sensitive, so please capitalize your last name (eg: Smith)