Would love to see a Sound of Music Revival

[BroadwayLove8]

Posted: 7/14/24 at 5:54pm

I don't post here a lot but am super passionate about theater and just wanted to share my desire for a Sound of Music revival - as I think it's been 65 years since the original Broadway production - and there was one revival in 1998. This is not a rumor or any whispering in the Broadway community, this is just purely my dream to see it come back to Broadway during my lifetime :)

It was literally my childhood and favorite movie growing up - I realize that this is one of the very rare exceptions where the movie version has probably been more successful than any stage production in regards to reputation - so it maybe needs some changes or a bit of a revamp but I just think we are due for a revival of this classic. 

My dream casting:

Maria: Willemijn Verkaik

Captain: Brian d'Arcy James (this could maybe get him his well deserved tony?)

[WldKingdomHM]

Posted: 7/14/24 at 6:22pm

I would give Gayle Rankin a shot as Maria

i mean nothing can ever top that amazing movie 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 7/14/24 at 6:35pm

Willemijn Verkaik is nearing 50 years old, the role of Maria is an injenue type and typically cast younger. She might be old enough to play Mother Abbess.

I’d be interested to see a Daniel Fish production of The Sound of Music. Emphasizing the nazi rhetoric in the subtext of the show might be interesting.

I would love to see Emilie Kouatchou as Maria and Ramon Karimloo as Captain Von Trapp.

[pdjennings]

Posted: 7/14/24 at 6:41pm

Don’t know much about it beyond this Kennedy Center announcement, but there’s a new tour starting next year being directed by Jack O’Brien. 
 

https://www.kennedy-center.org/whats-on/explore-by-genre/theater/2024-2025/the-sound-of-music/

[BwayLB]

Posted: 7/14/24 at 8:04pm

The stage and movie versions are equally beautiful! I saw a production at La Mirada Theater two years ago on Mothers Day. I don’t know if I would see it on stage again for a while. The movie will do me good for a while!

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 7/14/24 at 8:12pm

I'd love to see someone take a pass at the book, which is its weakest element (and the film and stage show both have different weaknesses in their writing), and a bold director do a take on it (not Jamie Lloyd or Ivo, please!)

I don't know if those things would make it BETTER but would at minimum be interesting.

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 7/14/24 at 8:38pm

pdjennings said: "Don’t know much about it beyond this Kennedy Center announcement, but there’s a new tour starting next year being directed by Jack O’Brien.


https://www.kennedy-center.org/whats-on/explore-by-genre/theater/2024-2025/the-sound-of-music/"

Not sure if this is a new tour or just a rehashing of the tour he directed a decade ago. Either way, that one never made it to NY, but maybe this one will have better luck.

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 7/14/24 at 9:18pm

All discussed here...

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=1153712#

Updated On: 7/14/24 at 09:18 PM

[darquegk]

Posted: 7/14/24 at 9:42pm

I think TSOM lives and dies on its Maria, and so many Marias neglect the fact that Maria is a manic pixie dream girl. They play her straight, like an ingenue or a Disney princess.

Maria is strange, unpredictable and quirky. She is sexy in a bizarre way that is out of place in stiff-upper-lip aristocratic Austria. She's a role Julie Andrews played, she's not (the rather one-dimensional public image associated with) Julie Andrews herself.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 8:51am

Unless it’s this interpretation, I ain’t interested.

 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 9:44am

darquegk said: "I think TSOM lives and dies on its Maria, and so many Marias neglect the fact that Maria is a manic pixie dream girl. They play her straight, like an ingenue or a Disney princess.

Maria is strange, unpredictable and quirky. She is sexy in a bizarre way that is out of place in stiff-upper-lip aristocratic Austria. She's a role Julie Andrews played, she's not (the rather one-dimensional public image associated with) Julie Andrews herself."

Maria is the personification of a flibbertigibbet! “a frivolous, flighty, or excessively talkative person.”

[Theatrefanboy1]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 10:54am

I would love to see this staring Laura Osnes as Maria and Ramin Karimloo and the Captain 

[someoneinatree2]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 11:04am

God, imagine this as a Hytner's Carousel-sized revival at the Beaumont - the orchestra swells as the stage rolls forward to reveal Maria on the Austrian Alps...

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 11:11am

Theatrefanboy1 said: "I would love to see this staring Laura Osnes as Maria and Ramin Karimloo and the Captain"

Osnes isn’t a flibbertigibit, could scare off investors, could result in press headaches that they don’t care for, and is meaningless for the box office  

Does SOM work if the Captain isn’t white? I don’t know the answer to that question, but Ramin is of Iranian descent and it’s hard to imagine the xenophobes of the Nazi party wanting him to command one of their submarines –– or moneybags Schrader putting her politics aside to date a person of color. I think color-conscious or colorblind casting could work for some of the other roles (Maria, Abbess, etc).

That being said, acknowledging that in the original production Georg (Theo Bikel) and Max (Kurt Kasznar) were both played by Austrian Jews.

Updated On: 7/15/24 at 11:11 AM

[60'splayoff]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 11:52am

Sara Bareilles as Maria. 

I know, I know... she'd be an older governess but she has my vote.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 12:06pm

I would have love to have seen Sutton Foster as Maria sometime between 2005-2015 with the right director. I think she has the exact right personality for the role and would have brought something interesting vocally to it that would not make anyone think of Julie Andrews or Mary Martin.

[IdinaBellFoster]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 12:29pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "I would have love to have seen Sutton Foster as Maria sometime between 2005-2015 with the right director. I think she has the exact right personality for the role and would have brought something interesting vocally to it that would not make anyone think of Julie Andrews or Mary Martin."

She would’ve been great! As someone mentioned above, Maria isn’t the ingenue she’s been turned into over time, and Sutton has that very specific energy the other nuns complain about.

The recent tour was meh. I would love to see either a lavish LCT revival or a bold new take. The tour was neither.

I’d be interested to see if the estate would be open to small book changes. The film does a much better job of weaving in the uneasiness and dread that is on the horizon earlier in the story.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 12:38pm

IdinaBellFoster said: "I’d be interested to see if the estate would be open to small book changes. The film does a much better job of weaving in the uneasiness and dread that is on the horizon earlier in the story."

Yes, there are some things that just work better in the film. Abbess & Maria do not need to sing Favorite Things together, get her out of the Abbey quicker; the song works better in the thunder scene than Lonely Goat (which probably means moving Lonely Goat to the Salzburg Fest or cutting it); I like the elements of Elsa and Max's politics in the stage show, but let's see a little more of that.

Updated On: 7/15/24 at 12:38 PM

[BwayLB]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 1:18pm

I also like Do Ri Mi better around the Salzburg countryside and Edelweiss sung twice

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 6:29pm

someoneinatree2 said: "God, imagine this as a Hytner's Carousel-sized revival at the Beaumont - the orchestra swells as the stage rolls forward toreveal Maria on the Austrian Alps..."

I remember getting chills at the top of the My Fair Lady revival when Eliza gets spun around on the revolve. If Bart Sher ever gets the chance to direct a revival of The Sound of Music at the Beaumont he should definitely reutilize the revolve effect.

[akhoya87]

Posted: 7/15/24 at 8:05pm

darquegk said: "I think TSOM lives and dies on its Maria, and so many Marias neglect the fact that Maria is a manic pixie dream girl. They play her straight, like an ingenue or a Disney princess.

Maria is strange, unpredictable and quirky. She is sexy in a bizarre way that is out of place in stiff-upper-lip aristocratic Austria. She's a role Julie Andrews played, she's not (the rather one-dimensional public image associated with) Julie Andrews herself."

Sooo... not Renee Rapp, then.

[William12]

Posted: 7/16/24 at 3:49am

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "darquegk said: "I think TSOM lives and dies on its Maria, and so many Marias neglect the fact that Maria is a manic pixie dream girl. They play her straight, like an ingenue or a Disney princess.

Maria is strange, unpredictable and quirky. She is sexy in a bizarre way that is out of place in stiff-upper-lip aristocratic Austria. She's a role Julie Andrews played, she's not (the rather one-dimensional public image associated with) Julie Andrews herself."

Maria is the personification of aflibbertigibbet! “afrivolous,flighty, orexcessively talkative person.”"

Christy Altomare is the first one who came to mind for me.

[joevitus]

Posted: 7/16/24 at 10:25am

darquegk said: "I think TSOM lives and dies on its Maria, and so many Marias neglect the fact that Maria is a manic pixie dream girl. They play her straight, like an ingenue or a Disney princess.

Maria is strange, unpredictable and quirky. She is sexy in a bizarre way that is out of place in stiff-upper-lip aristocratic Austria. She's a role Julie Andrews played, she's not (the rather one-dimensional public image associated with) Julie Andrews herself."

Maria is not even remotely a manic pixie dream girl. That description is closer to Holly Golightly.

[GiantsInTheSky2]

Posted: 7/16/24 at 10:43am

“I would love to see Emilie Kouatchou as Maria” 

She played the role quite well at the Ogunquit last winter. I would love to see her do it again on a larger stage!  

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 7/16/24 at 11:35am

As written in the musical, Maria is certainly more of a MPDG that most other R&H protagonists, though the comparison is obviously not 1:1 (Wikipedia definition here; "a young woman love-interest with eccentric personality quirks" does describe Maria). She has to be an impulsive, motormouth flibbertigibbet with a dislike for rules and authority, and she is at a crossroads in her life where she doesn't know WHAT she wants to do, she just knows it needs to be Something Better Than This.

She's a lowercase-L liberal personality in a world of lowercase-C conservative people.

Maria's edges have become sanded off over the years. I would love to see an actress who could bring a Bernadette Peters/Meg Ryan/Barbra Streisand/Sutton Foster energy to the role, even if that energy doesn't land 100% of the time. Julie Benko? Ashley Park? Micaela Diamond? Solea Pfeiffer? Shereen Pimentel? Auliʻi Cravalho? Rachel Zegler? Eva Noblezada? Adrienne Warren? Helen J Shen? Alyse Alan Louis? Helene Yorke (probably a little too old now)? Some of the WAITRESS Jennas?

Updated On: 7/16/24 at 11:35 AM