1973-1974 - Our fifth production, The Music Man, brought greater stability to TGP.

Aggie Armstrong continued as Vocal Director, providing much needed continuity. Two members of the Middle School staff, impressed by what they had seen during Eighth Grade attendance at previous musicals, joined TGP staff: Charlie Lassell became stage manager, a position he would hold for several consecutive years and then again later in our history. He was assisted by Tom Smith.

Gigi Obloy became our choreographer, a position previously held by students. She was assisted by student Terry Kilgus. The student choreographers of the previous four years had done a wonderful job, but students graduate much more frequently than staff members retire. Gigi would choreograph musicals for TGP for many years.

Alumnus John Spencer returned to assist in coaching the barbershop quartet.

Alumnus Michael Cusick, a student in theatre and music at SUNY, returned to head our lighting crew. For the first time we ordered some of our costumes from a professional costume house, The Atlanta (Ga.) Costume Company, and some of the pressure was taken off the teachers and students who had struggled with costuming for our first four years.

I have to confess to a particular fondness for The Music Man as a great example of musical theatre. The use of music to create a scene (“Rock Island” - the sound and movement of a train) and to show the feelings of two characters for each other (“Seventy Six Trombones” / ”Goodnight My Someone” - the same melody presented two different ways) is wonderfully done. The invocation of time and place through musical styles (barbershop singing, “Iowa Stubborn” and “Gary, Indiana” and period dance numbers) makes The Music Man arguably the definitive American musical. However, these same qualities make The Music Man an especially difficult undertaking. The production journal for The Music Man was written by Desi Funk, student director, and Jan Palmer, her assistant.

There were several unusual casting situations in The Music Man. To add variety to the youth of River City, it was decided to use several boys and girls from the middle and elementary schools in the chorus of townspeople and to cast the part of Winthrop Paroo from the younger auditionees. Leslie LaGuardia was given the job of working with the boys who were to audition for Winthrop’s role. She did such a good job of demonstrating Winthrop’s characteristics that she got the role. With the assistance of Ace elastic bandages, she played Winthrop so convincingly that most audience members were astounded to find out that Leslie was a girl.

Carol Ann Elze was a fine rehearsal pianist for Damn Yankees, but she had aspirations to be on stage. Her talent could not be denied, so she was given the role of Zaneeta Shinn with the understanding that, when not on stage, she would play for rehearsals. I still have images of Carol Ann leaping from the stage to play the piano and leaping on the stage to act and dance as Zaneeta.

Two of our male actors, Kevin Mulholland and Gus Domenico, had to appear bald in the show (Kevin as the farmer in the American Gothic bit and Gus as the anvil selling Charlie Cowell). Ellie Vickery and her makeup crew had a wonderful time fitting and blending their skullcaps each night and, when the caps proved difficult to remove, cutting a little hair from each head to ease the process.

The stage crew had another difficult year. Some of the sets were loosely copied from the original Broadway sets as shown in Life magazine. The ever popular side triangles were used for the main stage. The left side stage was used for the Paroo porch. I’m not sure what was on side stage right. One of the main set pieces was a wagon in two eight foot sections with the railroad car interior on one side and the footbridge on the other. Luckily the wagons could be preset before the “Rock Island” opening, but removing them and later resetting them in Act II in a timely manner proved to be a real challenge for the stage crew. Storing them between uses was also a challenge.

Until The Music Man, TGP had prided itself on singing and playing in tune. For one number (“The minuet in G”) in The Music Man, the performers onstage had to be taught to play the melody in a recognizable but horribly out of tune manner. Alan Thomson was given this job, and the results were wincingly exquisite. Alan still plays piano in the Capital District, and in tune, I might add.

Another senior in The Music Man, Josh McCullough (who can forget her rendition of “My White Knight”), returned to TGP years later from her teaching job at Lynnwood to do makeup.

The program for The Music Man was 20 pages.

The cast numbered 59 and the orchestra had 26 members, 2 of which were adults.

The Saturday night cast party for The Music Man was held at Cosmo’s on Western Ave., and the Sunday party was at Josh McCullough’s.

After The Music Man closed I wrote a status report on TGP which was circulated to school administrators and school board members. The purpose of the report was to show how far TGP had come in five years and how important TGP had become in the extra-curricular and educational programs of GHS. Another purpose was to pave the way for future proposals to expand the school district’s support for TGP. In the report it was pointed out that many students participating in the musical spent more time working on the show than they would spend in the classroom for a full year course. Also mentioned was the fact that the members of TGP by preparing what many would consider to be an impossible achievement for high school students, a high quality musical theatre production, learned the value of hard, consistent work, cooperation and a sense of obligation to others. The report stated, “ A feeling of success, pride in accomplishment and pride in being a part of something worthwhile are goals that most human’s strive for, and The Guilderland Players provides a way to achieve those goals.”