Shirley Jones Stars in 'Music Man' Hartford Concert with Patrick Cassidy

Variety reports Shirley Jones, who starred in the 1962 film version of The Music Man as Marian, will return to her roots in a staged concert version of The Music Man at Hartford's Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts.

The production will run April 22-27.  Philip William McKinley (The Boy From Oz) directs.  For the Hartford show, 73-year-old Jones will play Marian's mother.

The Music Man will also star Patrick Cassidy (Shirley Jones' son) as Harold Hill, and will feature members of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra onstage.  The mother and son team, Cassidy and Jones, also starred together in Broadway's 42nd Street.

The Music Man originally opened on Broadway in 1957, garnering the Tony Award for Best Musical (beating West Side Story).  Stars Barbara Cook and Robert Preston also won Tony Awards for their leading roles.  The Music Man was also adapted by ABC Disney into a television movie-musical featuring Kristin Chenoweth and Matthew Broderick.

According to press notes, "The Music Man follows fast-talking traveling salesman Harold Hill, as he cons the people of River City, Iowa, into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys' band he vows to organize - despite the fact he doesn't know a trombone from a treble clef! His plans to skip town with the cash are foiled when he falls for Marian the librarian…who transforms him into a respectable citizen." 

The all-American tuner features classic songs like "Seventy-Six Trombones," "Trouble," "The Sadder But Wiser Girl," "Till There Was You," "Marian the Librarian" and "Goodnight My Someone."

For tickets and information visit www.bushnell.org.

Patrick Cassidy and Shirley Jones