Matthew Broderick Spells Trouble
IN ABC'S CLASSY REVIVAL OF ''MUSIC MAN''As Prof. Harold Hill, Matthew Broderick admits singing songs like ''Ya Got Trouble'' for ABC's remake of ''Meredith Willson's The Music Man'' proved, well, troubling. ''I kept thinking of Robert Preston,'' he says of the late actor who originated the role of a traveling salesman who peddles a marching band to ignorant Iowans. ''I had to remember him, accept him, and throw his performance out a little bit.... I hope I do the material proud.''
No trouble there: The real music men behind''Music Man'' -- exec producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (of TV's ''Annie'' and the current big-screen ''Chicago'') -- were enticed by Broderick. ''When Preston's Harold Hill came into town, it was like a tornado ran them over,'' says Zadan. ''Matthew performs it much more mischievously. He seduces the people and bamboozles the town.'' The fleeced folk include Kristin Chenoweth (''Annie'') and Molly Shannon (''Saturday Night Live'') and Victor Garber (''Alias'').
Zadan and Meron updated the orchestrations but left the 1912 tale mostly intact, including dated ditties about the evils of billiards. ''It's pretty hilarious what Hill is terrifying these people about,'' says Broderick of the lyrics. ''Today, if people had children who went to a pool hall, that's pretty much like going to the library.'' (Feb. 16)
