The Music Man is one of the cleanest great musicals ever written, and the 2022 revival put Hugh Jackman, in full song-and-dance mode, in front of it as con man Harold Hill, with Sutton Foster as Marian the librarian.
Hill arrives in River City, Iowa, in 1912, invents a crisis (a new pool table), and sells the town instruments and uniforms for a boys' band he cannot teach. Marian sees through him. Then he gets her shy, lisping little brother Winthrop to talk again, and the con stops being the point.
The revival closed on January 15, 2023, so nobody can go see this production now. The 2022 Broadway cast recording is how you hear Jackman and Foster, and the 1962 movie with Robert Preston is how most families see the story. It also turns up constantly in school and community theater, which is where a lot of kids will meet it first.
