Playing the sensitive, young English poet, A.E. Housman, in The Invention of Love, Robert Sean Leonard won a Tony Award for his small, detailed choices, but come Aug. 7 he'll play the brash, brassy, bigger-than-life salesman, Harold Hill, in The Music Man on Broadway.

Eric McCormack steps out of the hit revival of the Meredith Willson tuner Aug. 5 to return to his TV series, "Will & Grace," and Leonard, who is not known for musical theatre, tackles "Seventy-Six Trombones," "Trouble" and "The Sadder-But Wiser Girl."

Susan Stroman directed and choreographed the new revival of The Music Man, a smash hit in 1959. Performances continue at the Neil Simon Theatre. Tom Stoppard's dense, rich The Invention of Love ends its run at the Lyceum Theatre June 30.

Leonard is a veteran of Lincoln Center Theatre stagings of Arcadia and Ancestral Voices, and Broadway's Candida (Tony nomination), The Iceman Cometh, You Never Can Tell, Breaking the Code, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Off-Broadway's Below the Belt. His film appearances include "The Last Days of Disco," "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Dead Poets Society."

Rebecca Luker continues in the role of Marian the Librarian in The Music Man.