Ojai ACT

By Jill Dolan, Special to the Ojai Valley News

You would never suspect a mystery might reveal itself at an Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce mixer. But for me — who is both a historian and part of the production team of The Music Man, now playing at the Ojai Art Center Theater — one came to light in a chance meeting with Mark Lewis, another local historian and president of the Art Center’s Literary Branch.

Lewis planed a July 16 panel discussion for the Literary Branch on Franklin Lacey, co-author with Meredith Willson of the script of The Music Man. He wondered if I knew anything about him?

I did. But only the basics. At one time Lacey served as the head of Happy Valley School (now Besant Hill), and his widow left a share of Lacey’s rights to the show to the school.

Sparked by my conversation with Lewis, I wanted to know more. First I called Charles Johnson, former librarian at the Museum of Ventura County, and editor of the “Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly.” Johnson retired in 2018 and started his own Ojai-based business, History by Design.

When I first met Charles I felt a little awestruck. He’s a great raconteur and carries the history of the county and the people in it in his head. As he was the librarian of an amazing repository of local history, I also knew I needed to get on his good side. If anyone knew about Franklin Lacey off the top of his head, I thought, it would be Charles.

To my surprise, he did not. But he wanted to.

With our knowledge of, and access to, online resources, we started typing away to see what we found. An hour or so in to this initial foray, we found some interesting facts — but no answers.

It’s a fact that Lacey collaborated with Aldous Huxley — a trustee of Happy Valley School for 15 years — on a musical adaptation of Brave New World, which was never produced.

And it’s also true that Lacey wrote a Broadway musical for comedienne Beatrice Lillie called Captain Isabelle, although it]s unclear whether that show ever got produced, either.

Most significantly, it is a fact that, upon her death in 2006, Gladys Lacey, Franklin’s widow, bequeathed to the Happy Valley Foundation a share of The Music Man, to be used without restrictions. Meaning, from our Ojai ACT production, to the one on Broadway starring Hugh Jackman, to Timbuktu, all productions of The Music Man adds to the coffers of Besant Hill. And that ain’t hay.

But this handful of facts garnered no connections. How and why did Franklin Lacey enter into the sphere of the Happy Valley Foundation, and how and when did he meet Meredith Willson?

Various sources offered conflicting information, and more questions. But Johnson and I are hooked. And so is Mark Lewis, who plans to explore the topic further.

I’ll participate in the upcoming panel discussion on Lacey at the Art Center Literary Branch on Saturday, July 16, at 3 p.m. to discuss our findings. Also on the panel will be Tracey Williams Sutton, artistic director of Ojai ACT and director of the current production of The Music Man, and Cary Ginell, publisher of VC On Stage, who is writing a book on the language in the show. Mark Lewis will moderate the discussion.