American Treasures: Meredith Willson, the Real ‘Music Man’

American Treasures: Meredith Willson, the Real ‘Music Man’
Shirley Jones, Robert Preston and 76 trombones star in the first film version of Meredith Willson's "The Music Man." Warner Bros.
Michael Kurek
Updated:

They say authors should write about what they know. If anyone knew what it means to be a Music Man, it was Meredith Willson (spelled with two L’s, 1902–1984), composer and playwright of the celebrated 1957 musical by that title. It turns out that Willson’s real life as a jack of all musical trades was incredible and even more fascinating than his fiction.

“The Music Man,” one of four Broadway shows Willson wrote (including his 1960 hit, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”), won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical (beating out “West Side Story” for that award), and ran for 1,375 performances on Broadway over three and a half years. It has had two movie adaptations, in 1962 and 2003, and countless ongoing productions in local theaters. There was a Broadway revival in 2000 with Rebecca Luker as Marian, and a much-awaited new revival, starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, is now set to open at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre with eyebrow-raising ticket prices in February 2022.
Michael Kurek
Michael Kurek
Author
American composer Michael Kurek is the composer and producer of the Billboard No. 1 classical album, “The Sea Knows,” and a member of the Grammy Producers and Engineers Wing of the Recording Academy. He is Professor Emeritus of Composition at Vanderbilt University. The most recent of his many awards for composition was being named in March 2022 “Composer Laureate of the State of Tennessee” by the Tennessee State Legislature and governor. For more information and music, visit MichaelKurek.com
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