The hills, or at very least the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium, will be alive with the sound of music come Monday, when the National Broadway Tour brings The Sound of Music to Ohio University at 7:30pm.
The musical is set within Austria in 1938, soon before Anschluss, in which the country was annexed into Nazi Germany. It follows Maria Rainer, who is planning on becoming a nun. However, Maria takes the job of a governess and quickly grows fond of the seven children and falls in love with their widowed father, Captain von Trapp.
“It’s one of those titles that will bring a little bit of everybody,” Senior Associate Director for Student Activities Andrew Holzaepfel said. “It’s always fun when we have a full house in the Memorial Auditorium. It’s even better when it’s a nice mixture of students, community members [and] families.”
First performed in 1959, The Sound of Music received instant recognition for its charming characters, uplifting music and positive message in the face of adversity. It is the last musical written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, who had previously written celebrated musicals such as Oklahoma!, Carousel and The King and I.
It was adapted into a musical film of the same name in 1965, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer as Maria and Captain von Trapp, respectively. The film reached unprecedented success, being the highest-grossing film of all time for five years after its debut. Even today, the film holds the hearts of the old and the young, including those at Ohio University.
Blake Weyand, a sophomore studying accounting, said that he and his parents loved watching anything with Julie Andrews, which of course included The Sound of Music.
“I’ve never seen a theater production like that, so I’d be interested in going to that,” Weyand said.
Holzaepfel has been working with the performing arts series for 20 years, each year bringing different Broadway titles to campus. The Sound of Music was available for a one-night engagement at a date that worked for both the tour and the university.
Holzaepfel is looking forward to a full house of both students and community members.
Keri Byers, a sophomore studying nursing, said she grew up on the film adaptation of The Sound of Music.
“My family was really a theatrical family, so I grew up on a lot of that stuff. It’s a really great movie, and I love the music,” Byers said.
