Campanile Productions wrapped up its last dress rehearsal of “The Music Man” before a big audience Wednesday night at the Alhambra Theatre.
The cast of four dozen community members will now put on five shows — at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, at 2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday, and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets, ranging from $15 to $25, can be purchased online.
First performed in 1957, the musical was revived for Broadway in 2022, starring Hugh Jackman. It is a favorite for community theater groups. In fact, the Pennyrile Players performed “The Music Man” in the mid-1970s at Hopkinsville Community College.
The show features Professor Harold Hill, the con man played by Campanile’s Tate Wells, as a fast talker who aims to cheat the good citizens of River City, Iowa, by convincing them to buy musical instruments and uniforms for the youth band he says they need to keep their boys out of trouble. But first he’ll have to fight his own good intentions when he decides to help a socially awkward boy with a lisp. Professor Hill’s romantic feelings for the boy’s older sister, the piano teacher in town, could make his plans even harder to pull off.
Despite the lead man’s attempts to scare the townspeople into paying him to save their boys from sin, this show might rank as one of the most family friendly productions Campanile has ever brought to Hopkinsville.
Other cast members include:
- Brad Ison as Charlie Cowell
- Nathan Huffman as the Conductor
- Andy Pitts as Mayor Shinn
- Ryan Riggs, Layton Holliman, Josh Owens and Tucker Wells as the Quartet
- Jackson Wells as Marcellus Washburn
- Kasey Miranda as piano teacher Marian Paroo
There are several children in this production. River City Kid is played by Storm Henderson and Benjamin Hensley. Storm and Benjamin also take turns playing the character Winthrop Paroo, the boy with lisp.
Campanile is a nonprofit theater group that has been producing shows in Hopkinsville with local talent since 2009.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
