If you saw Sayville High School’s The Music Man — the 2023 production, the 1995 production or the one back in 1970 — you heard all of River City belt out “Shipoopi.” But what exactly is a shipoopi?

In the show, she’s the girl who’s hard to get — the one who won’t fall for the first sweet line that comes her way, and only says yes to the fellow who truly means it.

And here’s the fun part: Meredith Willson made the word up for his 1957 musical. It isn’t old-time 1912 slang at all — it’s pure Willson invention, and it worked. Audiences have been happily singing it for nearly 70 years.

So the next time “Shipoopi” comes up, you’ll be the one who knows. And around Sayville, with two Music Man productions in our history, it comes up more often than you’d think!

Come visit our special page; https://sayvillealumni.org/from-our-stage-to-your-heart/

And here’s a modern twist: when The Music Man was revived on Broadway in 2022, with Hugh Jackman as Harold Hill, songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman were brought in to retool “Shipoopi” for today’s audiences. The original line — “the girl who’s hard to get, but you can win her yet” — became “the boy who’s seen the light, to treat a woman right.” Sayville’s own casts, of course, sang it the classic way in 1970, 1995 and 2023.

Why has The Music Man been a school favorite for generations? Start with the cast: it is a true ensemble show, with dozens of meaningful roles — a barbershop quartet, a feuding school board, the mayor’s whole family, even parts written for children — so a school full of students gets to take part. The story is wholesome: a con man undone not by the law, but by a town, and by love. And the score teaches the real thing — close harmony, patter, and a finale, ‘Seventy-Six Trombones,’ that seems made for a school band. It is funny and moving in the same breath, and that is why high schools keep coming back to River City.

Watch Sayville’s Own Music Man — 1995

And here’s the real treasure. Janine Clancy, who performed in Sayville musicals all through school, digitized her own footage of Sayville High School’s 1995 production of The Music Man and posted it to YouTube — nearly two hours of it. Our stage, our kids, ‘Shipoopi’ and all.

▶ Watch: Sayville High School’s The Music Man (1995) — the full production on YouTube

Video courtesy of Janine Clancy, who tells us she has more treasures in boxes from her years in Sayville musicals — we can’t wait to see them.

For more of Sayville’s stage history, visit our theatre page, From Our Stage to Your Heart.