‘Music Man’ director can relate to show

Tom Titus

Perhaps it’s true, as Thomas Wolfe once declared, that you can’t go

home again. But Tim Nelson is coming mighty close.

Nelson, who directs the musical productions for the Academy of

Performing Arts at Huntington Beach High School, has a special

affinity for his upcoming project, Meredith Willson’s “The Music

Man,” which opens its two-weekend engagement Friday.

“I’m thrilled to be directing it after having played Harold Hill

in my senior year of high school,” Nelson declares. “It has always

been dear to my heart. Also, I was raised in the Midwest and can

really relate to the material. In fact, several characters in the

show are modeled right after my aunts and uncles.”

Nelson has visited the fictional town of River City, Iowa, on

several occasions since high school. He recently played Harold Hill

again, was its musical director and conducted the “Music Man”

orchestra with his summer stock company in New York. Several of his

friends were in the recent Broadway revival with Craig Bierko, and

Nelson saw that production several times, picking up many cast

insights on their production.

“The fact that ‘Music Man’ was recently released on TV was a

godsend,” he says, referring to the recent Matthew Broderick version

on television. “It is wonderful to educate the general ‘TV public’

with Broadway musicals, and seeing ‘The Music Man’ on TV so close to

our opening, I hope, will generate a larger audience who are now

familiar with the show.”

Nelson’s production will spotlight senior “D” Pull in the role of

the traveling salesman/con man immortalized a half century ago by

Robert Preston on stage and screen.

“I am thrilled, since I sort of ‘discovered’ his voice back as a

freshman,” Nelson said. “He has really flourished in musical theater

over the past four years. He also is the scenic designer on the show

and designed the logo -- he’s quite an artist as well.”

Senior Amie Shapiro will play Marian (the librarian) Paroo, while

Ryan Hill is cast as Hill’s buddy Marcellus Washburn. A.J. Gutierrez

and Alie Gibbons will enact the comic roles of Mayor Shinn and his

wife, Eulalie.

Jenna Pinkham, who Nelson describes as “a senior who is able to

play a child,” is cast as Amaryllis, and Nelson has reconstructed the

number “Goodnight, My Someone” to showcase Amaryllis and Marian in a

first-ever duet. Winthrop is Riley Richards, “a freshman who could

pass for 10 -- another raw talent that came out of the woodwork.”

Rounding out the principals in the production are Jill Prout as

Mrs. Paroo -- with “a wonderful accent,” Nelson comments -- and

student “harmoneers” Alex Bartosch, Brian Champan, Michael Taber and

Liang Wang as the city officials who become an impromptu barber shop

quartet.

“ ‘Music Man’ is one of those shows I have become completely

immersed in,” Nelson exudes. “It’s a piece of Americana that our

country needs desperately at this time. Where else can you see a

barber shop quartet in a musical?”

You can see one this weekend and next in the Huntington Beach High

School auditorium.