Shirley Jones remembers it well. And tells it well. And even still sings it well.
Jones, who played prim librarian Marian Paroo in the 1962 film version of The Music Man, revisits the show more than half a century later in "The Music Man in Concert," an abbreviated version of Meredith Willson's musical, co-starring Jones' son, Patrick Cassidy, as quasi-musical con man Professor Harold Hill.
In the Celebrity Attractions' season opener Friday night at the Maumelle Performing Arts Center, where the nationwide tour wraps up this weekend, Jones, now playing her movie character's Irish mother, got to sing a little, dance a little (a turn or two around the stage with Cassidy, in fact) and tell tales about the making of the movie, complete with photo montages on an overhanging screen.
She even got to double the Marian, Teri Bibb, for a few bars on "Goodnight, My Someone," suggesting, perhaps, that on a good day she could, maybe, still somehow reprise the role.
Bibb, a veteran of a thousand Broadway performances as Christine in Phantom of the Opera, is phenomenal, by the way, and even provides a surprise talent for the grand finale (which includes, among other delights, the Parkview Arts & Science High marching band). A fine ensemble of nine players fills all the other principal roles, with four of the five men stellar as the barbershop quartet and the fifth stellar as Marcellus.
Corbin Pitts, 8, a third-grader at North Little Rock's Lakewood Elementary, made the absolute most of his one brief shining moment, a verse from "Wells Fargo Wagon," as the "local Winthrop." A 12-piece band of local musicians did well atop the lattice-fronted bandstand that was pretty much the entire set.
Jones, Cassidy, Bibb, Master Pitts et al. will do it all over again at 2 and 8 p.m. today and 2 p.m. Sunday at the center at Maumelle High School, 100 Victory Lane, Maumelle. Ticket information is available by calling (501) 244-8800 or (800) 982-2787 (ARTS) or online at ticketmaster.com.
Metro on 10/04/2014