A Few Nice Things

So as I have said before (at least I think) I am in my school's production of the Music Man. We haven't been rehearsing over U.E.A. so to keep it fresh in my mind I have been reading Meredith Wilson's story of how he wrote The Music Man entitled (ironically enough) "But He Doesn't Know the Territory." I have loved reading it and I came across this passage that really helped with the ever important character development. Since I am going to be living and breathing Marian for the next few weeks, I thought I'd post it:

"Her first act song—the first version of “My White Knight”—was at that time in the form of a short introspective ballad, expressing her longing for the guy of her dreams. When we know exactly what kind of guy that is, we ought to know what we don’t know yet about this girl. Her lyric in this song, so far, didn’t tell us enough. It isn’t a Lancelot she wants, nor a John L. Sullivan. She’s not a snob either—she doesn’t want any egghead necessarily, nor is she afraid of getting a little manure on her front porch from the local Iowa farm boys. Okay, we know all that. What else? Maybe she just wants a guy who is not too Iowa-Stubborn to love her and admit it once in a while. A guy who is not ashamed of a few nice things she likes around the house. Like the Marble Faun and Emerson’s Essays. “A guy,” I says, “who—for example—is not ashamed of a few nice things. Just someone who loves her, who is not ashamed of a few nice things!” And there it finally sat—just like that. Fell into the lyric like a clam in the chowder. And the three of us let out a holler and rushed out the door to dinner. Once of these days I’d unravel Miss Marian for keeps. Now I knew."