Word: costas
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...three men with widely varied experience in show business: Composer (You and I, Two in Love] and oldtime Radio Performer Meredith Willson, 56, the jovial lowan who in his first try for the theater wrote book, music and lyrics; Director (No Time for Sergeants, Auntie Mame) Morton Da Costa, 44, who gave the show its sparkle and pace; and the Music Man himself, longtime Cinemactor Robert Preston, 40, known vaguely to millions of moviegoers for years as the handsome, thick-browed heavy of B pictures who rarely got the girl...
Open Face & Big Frustration. Bloomgarden called in Director Da Costa and set to work casting the show. Barbara Cook (Plain and Fancy') had just the right sweet voice to play Marian; Comedian David Burns was a natural for the wacky mayor; an international championship barbershop quartet, the Buffalo Bills, was signed to harmonize the Sweet Adeline-style love songs that reminded Willson of Mason City days; a ten-year-old charmer named Eddie Hodges took on the role of Marian's shy little brother...
Finding the man to play Harold Hill was a more complicated problem. Television Comic Milton Berle wanted the part. TV Actor Art Carney was considered, and so was Dancer Ray Bolger. Da Costa had seen Robert Preston in a few summer stock shows; Bloomgarden, too, knew Preston's work. Says Da Costa: "Preston has energy and he has reality. He's an actor who can project himself larger than life. And he has enough sureness of technique and enough urbanity to portray the con man and the opportunist without resorting to a wax mustache. The part calls...
Preston tried out first for Da Costa and Bloomgarden, and his version of Trouble-the toughest song in the show -sold them. Next, they had to sell Willson. Willson heard Trouble and bought...
...Shape. With money and a cast, the show still had a long way to go. Willson's script needed cutting and shaping to give it a nonstop lilt and easy movement. Director Da Costa, a craftsman who has worked quietly in the theater for more than 20 years, buckled down. Says he: "I thought the time had come to send the public out of the theater light-hearted instead of depressed. I wanted this to come off as a story about a charming renegade who reforms, a show with a lot of love and no hate, one that...