Lamoille County Players    
Hyde Park Opera House, P O Box 9, Hyde Park, Vermont, 05655 (802) 888-4507

The Sound of Music

September 27, 28, 29, 30*, October  4, 5, 6, 7*
   Adults $12.00   Seniors/Students $10.00      *Matinee 1/2 Price

When she was 28, Maria Augusta Trapp unknowingly tugged on the rope of the "wishing bell" at a county chapel in Tirol. While chatting with a friend: "I wish I could become a writer, too, after I’m forty." Surely enough, in 1949 "The Story of the Von Trapp Family Singers" was published. Maria related her families struggles and escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, their adventures as a traveling folk choir, and their early years in Stowe.

A German film company picked up the story, and "Die Trapp Familie" became such a hit in 1956 that it was followed by a 1958 sequel, "Die Trapp Familie in Amerika".

The story caught the attention of Broadway’s number-one actress, Mary Martin, who set out to develop a straight dramatic play incorporating some of the Trapp Family’s signature folk songs and religious works.

Between Martin and her husband, producer Richard Halliday, they had the clout to attract the best in the business: play writers Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. Halliday and Martin also approached their friends Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II to ask for one original song for the play.

Rogers and Hammerstein felt the show work better as a full original musical. They began working on the score in March of 1959, and "The Sound of Music", starring Mary Martin as Maria, opened on Broadway in November. It won six Tony Awards including best musical.

Screenwriter Ernest Lehman and director Robert Wise brought "The Sound of Music" to Hollywood in 1965. It won five Academy Awards including best picture, and has since triumphed on television and home video as well.

The 1998 Broadway revival of "The Sound of Music" incorporates extensive on-site research (Salzburg, Austria) on costuming and set design, scenes from both the original stage version and movie, and the latest technology to bring new magic to this best-loved of American musicals.

The Lamoille County Players have presented "The Sound of Music" each fall since 1980. While we like to throw in a new twist here and there, the presentation remains true to Steve Hall’s original interpretation.

Many cast, crew and orchestra members have been a part of "The Sound of Music" for several years. We like to "talk shop" about past highlights (the 1998 ‘bat in the belfry’ incident being a favorite), and which of Maria’s costumes was really "the ugliest dress I’ve ever seen".

Fans from all over the world crowd into the Hyde Park Opera House at the height of Fall Foliage to hear it all again-

"I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I’ve heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music,
And I’ll sing once more."

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Copyright 1999 Lamoille County Players
Last Updated Thursday, September 27, 2001 11:34:12 AM

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