Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Location, Location, Location

Middlebury Community Players’ director Douglas Anderson found that site was as important as subject in bringing Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man to life. “It’s the ideal small-town production,” he says. And, with 47 actors (the largest cast yet to grace the Town Hall Theater stage), he adds, “Here in Middlebury, we feel like we have most of the town in the show.” Amid the barbershop melodies and march-tempo choruses, local audiences will notice actual families playing fictional ones. “Given our recent political and financial concerns in America,” Anderson continues, it “seems right to go back to a simpler time ... [1912] — a period we have very warm feelings of.” What’s more heartwarming than a sweet librarian weakening a bad-boy con man’s resolve?