Musical theatre senior Thomas Cromer practices a tap routine

Musical theatre senior Thomas Cromer will be a leading man for the first time in an OU production, starring as Jimmy Winter in Nice Work if You Can Get it beginning Friday evening at 8 p.m. in Brackett Theatre.
Cromer will play a wealthy playboy who gets into trouble when he begins to fall in love with a female bootlegger, while preparing to marry the sophisticated woman he believes will appease his mother in the musical-comedy set in the 1920s.
Cromer has been an ensemble member in OU productions all four years of college, and has climbed the ladder from small town freshman with no professional singing or dancing experience to veteran senior playing the biggest role in the spring musical for the Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre.
“I’ve worked really hard and it does feel like validation in a sense” said Cromer. “I had never even taken a voice lesson before coming here.”
Lyn Cramer, the director of Nice Work if You Can Get it, noted the significant, steady improvement Cromer has made in his four years that gave him the opportunity to have a lead role in the musical.

“His (improvements) all come together here” Cramer said in an email. “You can see what hard work and commitment to your art form can produce on the stage.”

Nice Work if You Can Get it will run until Feb. 18 and tickets can be purchased in advance from the Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre website.

“We hope everyone comes out to see it” Cromer said. “It is a really, really fun show.”

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