New York theater critics have given mixed reviews to the third Broadway revival of The Music Man at the Winter Garden Theatre. The original Tony-winning production starring Robert Preston opened in 1957; the show returned to Broadway in 1980 with Dick Van Dyke and then in 2000 with Craig Bierko. The current creative team includes Meredith Willson (book, music, lyrics), Franklin Lacey (book), Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (addl. lyrics), Jerry Zaks (direction), Warren Carlyle (choreography), Santo Loquasto (sets, costumes), Brian MacDevitt (lights), and Scott Lehrer (sound).
The cast includes Hugh Jackman (Harold Hill), Sutton Foster (Marian Parro), Jefferson Mays (Mayor Shinn), Jayne Houdyshell (Eulalie Shinn), Shuler Hensley (Marcellus), Marie Mullen (Mrs. Paroo), and Benjamin Pajak (Winthrop Paroo), with Gino Cosculluela (Tommy Djilas), Emma Crow (Zaneeta Shinn), Remy Auberjonois (Charlie Cowell), and the barbershop quartet of Phillip Boykin (Olin Britt), Nicholas Ward (Oliver Hix), Daniel Torres (Ewart Dunlop), and Eddie Korbich (Jacey Squires).
Jackman and Foster (center) with the cast (photo by Joan Marcus)
Associated Press (Mark Kennedy): Hugh Jackman is playing one of musical theater’s greatest con men on Broadway these days but he’s not fooling anyone: He’s the real deal. … But Jackman is but just one astonishing part of the subtly reworked Meredith Willson musical. … It overflows with talent, clever ideas and a hard-working multicultural cast. … If there ever was a stage match for Jackman, Foster is it. … You wouldn’t expect this 60-plus year-old chestnut to speak to 2022 but it often does. … The Music Man starts on a train and feels like a ride you never want to stop. As the conductor says at the beginning: “All aboard!”
Hollywood Reporter (Frank Scheck): The revival of The Music Man was planned long before the pandemic, but its years-delayed arrival only serves to make it seem more essential for a badly battered Broadway sorely in need of spirit-lifting. … Jackman has the audience in the palm of his hand. And when Sutton finally gets to shed her character’s decorousness and let loose her tremendous dancing chops, there’s definitely no more trouble in River City. … In its determined effort to evoke the musical comedy Broadway of yore and make us feel happy simply to be in a theater again, the show ironically feels urgently timely.
New York Times (Jesse Green): There comes a moment … when high spirits, terrific dancing and big stars align in an extended marvel of showbiz salesmanship. Unfortunately, that moment is the curtain call. Until then, the musical … only intermittently offers the joys we expect from a classic revival starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. … We get an extremely neat, generally perky, overly cautious take on a musical that, being about the con game of love and music, needs more danger in the telling. … If we’re going to keep selling classic shows, we have to find meaningful new ways to package them. Even for the best salesmen among us, and Jackman is surely that, the territory is changing fast.
Theater Mania (David Gordon): It’s a perfectly enjoyable, not life-changing staging of a classic musical, and if you’re looking for a night out that takes you away from the February doldrums, however briefly, this Music Man is a sight for sore eyes. But if you’re looking for a Music Man that makes you want to stand up and cheer, this ain’t it. … This production knows what its audience wants, and to be sure, it’s not The Music Man or any other show: it’s unimpeded time with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, and in that respect, it delivers in spades. … You probably don’t care what I think, anyway. You’re going for Hugh, and he won’t let you down.
Time Out (Adam Feldman): For a revival of musical theater’s most famous portrait of a con artist, the new Broadway production of The Music Man seems oddly lacking in confidence. Meredith Willson’s 1957 classic should sweep you up in a happy spell of suspended disbelief. … And who better to cast such magic, one might think, than Hugh Jackman. … Yet while this Music Man is a solid and professional piece of work, and includes many incidental pleasures, the hoped-for enchantment never arrives. … The Music Man’s story of duplicity and redemption could have deeper resonance today than ever, but this incarnation sticks resolutely to the surface.