Trouble in River City

Signs you might be attending a community theatre production:

1. The townspeople pay more attention to the audience than to the action

2. The costumes and props don't seem to adhere to any particular time period (example - rolling office chairs and Harry Potter hardback books)

3. There seem to be a lot more children's dance numbers than you remember there being when you saw it on Broadway

4. Characters accents change from line to line and scene to scene

5. Any presence of white Keds onstage

6. Intensely long scene changes - sometimes with music, sometimes without

7. The townspeople may or may not know the choreography

8. Handpainted signs that look like they were done by a second grader on poster board with a marker

9. There are four hundred children, twenty women and six males in the show

10. There are three decent actors, and the director isn't one of them (though he is in the show)

11. The barbershop quartet's clothing almost matches

12. The band has a total of five instruments, two of which are plastic recorders

13. The townspeople may or may not know the lyrics to the songs

14. The orchestra consists of mostly junior high kids, an old lady playing the piano, and one adult male

15. The interpreters have better acting skills than the female lead

Yes - I saw Moorestown Theater Company's production of The Music Man.

And it was highly enjoyable.

And I took a picture of Mom and Deb with my crazy Retro Camera app.