Synopsis:
"Professor" Harold Hill is a con man whose scam
is to convince parents he can teach their musically-disinclined children to play
a musical instrument. Taking pre-paid orders for instruments and uniforms with
the promise he will form a band, he skips town and moves on to the next one before
he's exposed. Arriving in fictional 1912 River City, Iowa, Hill's modus operandi
is compromised when he becomes attracted to local librarian Marian Paroo, who
recognizes him for the fraud he is. Nevertheless, she falls in love with the
smooth-talking charmer when he draws her self-conscious, lisping brother Winthrop
from his shell. When Hill's scheme begins to unravel, he is faced with the choice
of escaping yet again or staying with Marian and facing the consequences.
[courtesy of Wikipedia]
Characters
- Prof. Harold Hill (a con man)
- Marian Paroo (a librarian)
- Winthrop Paroo (Marian's lisping younger brother)
- Mrs. Paroo (Marian's Irish mother)
- Mayor Shinn (a blustery politician)
- Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn (his wife)
- The Barbershop Quartet (four bickering school board members,
Jacey Squires, Ewart Dunlop, Olin Britt, Oliver Hix)
- Pickalittle Ladies (Eulalie's four gossipy friends, Alma Hix,
Mrs. Squires, Ethel Toffelmier, Maud Dunlop)
- Marcellus Washburn (Harold's friend, now retired from the con-man
game)
- Others: Amaryllis (Marian's young piano student), Tommy Djilas
(a young man "from the wrong side of town"), Zaneeta and Gracie Shinn
(the mayor's eldest and youngest daughters), Charlie Cowell (a rival salesman),
and Constable Locke
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