Starlight’s Artistic Director Brian Wells is reprising the role of the slippery salesman that he last performed at Starlight in 1997 and that he performed for the first time opposite local actress Julie Jacobs at Youth Summerstock Theatre (the first high school production ever seen by yours truly!). Brian’s experience is evident, playing the part with charisma, a con artist edge, and a bit of romanticism and sincerity buried under the surface and ready for Marion the Librarian and family to dig out. Laurel Peterson Wicke is a much more melodramatic Marion than usual – a trait that works best when she realizes with a shock that she has agreed to meet Harold Hill at the footbridge (River City’s “inspiration point”). She sings such beautiful romantic ballads as Till There Was You and My White Knight, as well as Goodnight, My Someone joined by the sweet voice of Christine Hillmann as young Amaryllis. That Amaryllis, like everyone in the audience, is in love with Marion’s shy, little brother Winthrop (Ari Lerner) who, with a little help from Harold, really breaks out of his shell with a dynamic rendition of Gary, Indiana.

Singing-wise, the Tuesday Night Alibi barbershop quartet delivers some masterful harmonics as River City’s bickering school board members who finally find friendship and harmony singing old, turn-of-the-century standards. Comedy-wise there is another great quartet consisting of Jeff Asch as Harold’s partner-in-crime Marcellus, Linda Libby as Marion’s mother who desperately wants to play matchmaker for her “old maid” of a daughter, John Burt Polhamus as the town's phraseology-challenged mayor, and Melinda Gilb as his delightfully amusing wife.

Lindsey Grubbs and Brian Crum play the star-crossed lovers Zaneeta Shinn (the mayor’s daughter) and Tommy Djilas (the mayor’s nemesis). Thanks to Directors and Choreographers Jack Tygett and Joyce Schumaker, the two actually act out the tragic last scene of Romeo and Juliet in the library during just one of many great dance routines led by Lindsey and Brian. The choreography and sensational dancing by the ensemble make for the most outstanding scenes of the show from the inspired efforts to create human Grecian urns (complete with gushing water spout), to a visually spectacular Shipoopi scene with the cast bedecked in a beautiful array of purple, pink, and white outfits designed by Kathy Auckland, to the big slice of Americana in 76 Trombones led by the pied piper himself – Harold Hill.