Music Man - Spoiler Alert

Norm Lewis, Jesse Mueller, Rosie ODonnell lead an incredible cast. For a semi-staged production w/the orchestra on stage, what they pulled off was impressive.

The curtain came down after the River City children tried to play as their parents yelled, "that's my Barnie, that's my Eddie, that's my Davey, etc." The classic Robert Preston march down Main St with the "76 Trombones" didn't happen. Several of us looked at each other perplexed.

So the cast came out for the curtain call followed by all them lining up on stage to play "76 Trombones" on kazoo-sized trombones. After a few squawky bars of that, Norm blew his whistle, the cast stopped playing. That's when director Marc Bruni surprised everyone.

Norm blew the whistle, and unexpectedly, the Univ of Maryland Marching Band marched into the theater aisles playing the song on the real trombones, along with all the other instruments so mentioned in the lyrics.

Everyone went nuts.

A cast member at the stage door said they cried when they learned what the director planned. Don't know if that's what they did with musicians during the last Bway revival, but it made the night.

Great job. Hope it comes to Broadway.

The last Broadway revival did basically the same thing, except it was all the actors playing 76 Trombones on the trombone instead of a full marching band. Also, at the top of the show, the wind and percussion players from the orchestra played the Overture from the stage (and then did the rest of the show from the pit).

The stage show's true ending is with the "Barney, my Barney" bad playing, but I've always felt it needs something more after that, as a more punchy finale.

I agree Something Peculiar that "Barney, Barney" just doesn't do it justice as Preston skipping down the street or even the band. Every time I watched the Producers movie, it was a trip seeing Nathan Lane duplicating that Preston scene with the old ladies in tow.

Anyway, a theater student from Catholic Univ of America in DC was at the stage door one night when I was there. He wrote this great blog about it.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/washington-dc/article/BWW-Blog-Seventy-Six-Trombones-and-A-Whole-Lot-of-Fun-20190212