It was supposed to open in fall 2020, but rehearsals were interrupted by the pandemic shutdown. In 2021, it jettisoned its lead producer, Scott Rudin, after allegations of bullying. When the show restarted, both lead actors — Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster — contracted COVID-19. And when the understudies couldn’t keep it going, it temporarily shut down.
Now its producers see light at the end of the tunnel — for the show and Broadway. “The Music Man” opens Thursday as the marquee event of this theater season, commanding hundreds of dollars per ticket and signaling a new dawn for a beleaguered theater industry.
“Everything has been thrown at us and we survive,” says Barry Diller, who is producing alongside David Geffen and Kate Horton. “But I won’t say we’ve survived until we open. I woke up this morning thinking locusts might come.”
The musical tells the simple story about Harold Hill, a traveling con man who in 1912 convinces a small Iowa town into forming a band and selling them instruments until love changes him. It’s got classic songs like ″Seventy-Six Trombones,” ″Goodnight My Someone,” ″Gary, Indiana” and “Till There Was You.”
