"The Sound of Music" by Frosted Glass Creative

Seeing my sentimental favorite The Sound of Music (having grown up loving the movie, later playing clarinet in the pit orchestra for my high school production, and spending four months living in Salzburg in college) outdoors by the river in Stillwater was an absolute dream. Frosted Glass Creative had to cancel the first of only three performances due to a storm, but the delayed opening night was a success. Even though it was hot and buggy, and there were some sound issues in the challenging outdoor environment, with difficult sightlines at times, I loved every second of it. It's such a joyful story about following your dreams, connecting through music, and making difficult sacrifices to stand up for what's right. The large and talented cast and gorgeous full orchestra put so much heart into the show that even people floating by on the river could feel it. Stillwater's Zephyr Theatre premiered "Broadway on the Bridge" on this spot in the pandemic days, which sadly only lasted two years (Mamma Mia! and School of Rock) before they experienced financial difficulties and had to pause activities for a year or two. Former Zephyr Artistic Director Calyssa Hall is now with Frosted Glass (and directed this show) and began their "Broadway on the St. Croix" series last year, and it's such a great idea and a perfect spot for outdoor musicals - truly the prettiest stage in Minnesota. The second and final performance of The Sound of Music is tonight, but follow Frosted Glass for more theater opportunities along the beautiful St. Croix River.

UPDATE: Monday night performance added to make up for Friday's rainout - get tickets here!

"The Sound of Music" at Artistry

The Sound of Music is a particular favorite of mine, having grown up watching and loving the movie, playing clarinet in the pit orchestra of my high school production, and studying abroad in wunderschöne Salzburg almost 30 years ago. It's been over eight years since we've had a professional #TCTheater production of it, so seeing it at Artistry in Bloomington is a thrill. They've assembled a fantastic cast of #TCTheater favorites and some precocious children, with a simply lovely design, and Raymond Berg leading a 13-piece onstage orchestra on this beloved score. And the result is every bit as warm, comforting, familiar, and delightful as it should be. It continues through May 12, but I'm not the only one with a built-in love for this show, so it's already selling out. Don't wait to long too get your tickets to Salzburg!

"Rodgers and Hammerstein at the Movies" at Orchestra Hall

From "the hills are alive with the sound of music" to "Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain," composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II have given us some of the most memorable and beloved melodies and lyrics in all of musical theater. Most of their creations were made into movies several years after the stage success, allowing even more people to fall in love with them. This weekend the Minnesota Orchestra is presenting a concert of excerpts from seven of their big hits, with clips from the movies shown on a big screen. As a former band geek who's normally too busy attending theater to listen to the orchestra, I revel in the chance to get my orchestra fix in when they do something theater related. It's an absolute thrill to hear this huge full gorgeous orchestra playing selections from Rodgers and Hammerstein's incredible and prolific partnership.

"The Sound of Music" at the Ordway Center

Confession: The Sound of Music is a sentimental favorite of mine for many reasons, and I cannot possibly be impartial when watching any version of it. I just love it, plain and simple. Firstly, when I was growing up in the olden days before the internet, cable, or even VCRs, we were at the mercy of TV programming what movies we watched over and over. Fortunately The Sound of Music was one that was played every year, so I grew up loving it as a child loves it. Then I had the pleasure of playing in the pit orchestra for my high school production (the most fun this nerd ever had in high school), which gave me a whole new level of appreciation for Rodgers and Hammerstein's beautiful score. Finally, I had the great opportunity to study abroad in Salzburg, so that now watching the movie is like a nostalgic trip to my European home-away-from-home. So you see, The Sound of Music is beloved to me, and the Ordway bringing it to life on stage with a mostly local cast chock full of favorites is a dream come true. While there is nothing really new or revolutionary about this very faithful production (directed by Gary Briggle and choreographed by Bob Richard) of a well-known classic, or maybe because of that very fact, the show cast a spell over me from which I didn't want to ever awake!

"The Sound of Music" Live on NBC

On Thursday December 5 NBC broadcast a musical live on TV, which hasn't been done (so they say) in 50 years. It was much more common in the '50s; e.g., Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote Cinderella for TV and it was originally broadcast live. I think it's an intriguing idea, even if something gets lost in the transmission. So intriguing that I watched it live (I almost never watch TV live anymore) and live-commented on the Cherry and Spoon Facebook page. You can read my commentary in the bulleted list below, but first, my overall thoughts on the show.

Let me preface this by saying that The Sound of Music is one of my all time favorite movies and musicals. When I was a kid back in the dark ages before cable TV or even VCRs, the 1965 Julie Andrews classic was one of the movies that was constantly on TV, so I saw it a million times as a kid and loved it. In high school, I was in the pit orchestra for my high school production of the musical, and it was such a thrill to play that familiar music on my clarinet and develop a whole new appreciation for it, as well as sit in the pit for every rehearsal and performance. Finally, I spent four months living in Salzburg studying abroad, which makes the movie even more beloved to me because of the nostalgia for that beautiful city, which I was lucky enough to call home for a short period of time. Because of all of these things, I'm extemely biased towards loving any production of The Sound of Music, and this is no exception (which doesn't mean I can't see the faults in this production, well at least some of them).

The good:

• Let's start with the best part of the show - the divinely talented 5-time Tony-winner Audra McDonald as the Mother Abbess. Obviously she sounded beyond amazing in the always-thrilling "Climb Every Mountain," but it was her acting chops that made every one of her scenes a cut above the rest. 

• Carrie Underwood has a gorgeous voice, and sounded beautiful singing these songs.
• Broadway vet Laura Benanti (previously known to me only from her recurring role in Royal Pains, a light and fun show that has the benefit of filming in the NYC area and hiring lots of theater actors as guests) as the Baroness Schrader was so effortlessly good that I was hoping for her to end up with the Captain. Which is also a bad thing because that's not the way the story is supposed to go.
• Recent Tony winner Christian Borle was an absolute delight as Max, one of my favorite characters and the acerbic comic relief in the show. He elevated every scene he was in (although he might have benefited from an in-studio audience, see below).
• Every one of the seven children playing the Von Trapp kids did a fantastic job. Great job by the casting department to find this collection of unknowns that became a family.

• The best scenes were the ones that featured the children, or these three:

• Yes the mountains and the trees looked fake, but that didn't bother me, it almost made it feel more like a classic '50s televised musical. I thought the Von Trapp family home was beautiful, with clever transitions between stages.

The bad:

• There's no way around it, Carrie Underwood is not an actor. I don't blame her, she tried her best to do the job she was hired to do, and I thought the singing part of the job was practically flawless. But when you hire a non-actor to act, you can't really be surprised when you get a stiff and emotionless performance. The most important thing in musical theater is not the music but the story. If you can't feel for the characters and become invested in the story, it doesn't matter how beautiful the music is.
• A big part of live theater is the audience, witnessing something special in the presence of others and hearing their reactions mingle with yours. The jokes and dramatic moments fall a little flat in a completely silent studio, with nothing but thin air to greet the performances.

The ugly:

• Come on, you know me, I'm not going to say anything was ugly!

All in all I think this was a successful experiment (with huge ratings), but like all experiments, lessons must be learned to improve the next iteration. I would love to see NBC do this again next year (they already have the sets and costumes and have figured out the logistics, so it's sure to be much cheaper). My suggestion for casting the leads - look no further than the other actors in the cast. Laura Benanti has played Maria on stage and proven herself in this unique genre, so I'd love to see her take on the role next year. As the captain I would cast Michael Park, who played the party guest who delivered the classic line "I'm not a German, I'm Austrian!" A veteran of TV and the stage, Michael can be funny and charming, as well as stern and forceful, and has a beautiful voice. Audra should continue to play the Mother Abbess as long as she's willing, and Christian should play Max in every production of The Sound of Music ever. And have a big casting call for the kids every year to give fresh new talent an opportunity to shine. Yes, I'd love to see this become an annual event.

So here it is, my live commentary:

• It's time! Turn on your TV, friends, The Sound Of Music is about to start, live from a studio on Long Island! It's been almost 15 years since I've seen it on stage, but before that I was in the pit orchestra for my high school production (clarinet), so we'll see how much I remember about the stage version. If I recall correctly, the show opens with some beautiful chanting in the convent.
• It's Audra McDonald! Here's an awkward stage door photo with her after The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess on Broadway last year, when I said a bunch of rambling gushing things about how much I love her. She's won 5 Tonys.

• One of my favorite lines. "Religious life is no place for the pious." "You mean the pretentiously pious."
• Carrie's a better actor when she's singing.
• It's Vampire Bill! I mean, Captain Von Trapp. I wonder how long before I'll stop waiting for his fangs to pop out?
• Did you catch that, kids? "I wasn't in the Imperial Navy." "Too bad, you could have made a fortune." 
• How cute are those kids? Fun fact: Kurt is played by a young man named Joe West, whose parents Maura West and Scott Defrietas met on the set of the dear departed soap As the World Turns, where she played Carly (and won several Emmys) and he played Andy. Maura is currently appearing on General Hospital as Ava.
• Rolf's kind of dreamy, isn't he? Until he turns into a Nazi. Don't you hate it when the guy you're crushing on turns into a Nazi?
• Here's a difference between stage and movie versions - "Lonely Goatherd" instead of "My Favorite Things." Poor Carrie, each one of those kids is a better actor than she is!
• The hilarious and talented Tony-winner Christian Borle! Perfect casting for Max.
• I have a feeling I'm going to be rooting for Elsa (Tony-winning actor Laura Benanti) instead of Maria to win Georg's heart.
• "I'm not a German, I'm Austrian!" That's the wonderfully talented and super sweet actor Michael Park, three-time Emmy winner and Broadway actor. Here's a photo of Michael and I on the set of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying a few years ago. (For more of that story, see: http://www.cherryandspoon.com/2011/09/how-to-succeed-in-business-without.html)

• Best moment of The Sound Of Music so far - Audra McDonald singing "Climb Every Moment." Chills!!
• I call a foul! In the original stage musical Georg and Maria sang a song called "An Ordinary Couple." "I Must Have Done Something Good" was written for the movie. "An ordinary couple, is all I long to be, for all I want of living is to keep you close to me. To laugh and sing together, as time goes on its flight, to kiss you every morning and to kiss you every night. An ordinary couple." (wow, that came right back to me after 20+ years)
• Response from Jennifer Eckes (who knows a thing or two about musical theater trivia, as seen in Pop-Up Musical): "I think the general consensus is that "Something Good" is the better song, much like "You're the one that I Want" always gets used in productions of GREASE since the movie. Plus it is easier for the singers to sing."
• I lived in Salzburg for four months when studying abroad, so one of my favorite parts of watching the movie is pointing out the geographical inconsistencies (e.g., if you climb the mountains outside Salzburg, you end up in Germany, not Switzerland). I went back to Salzburg a few years ago and took the Sound of Music tour and saw lots of filming locations. The church where the wedding was filmed is not in Salzburg, but a little town outside of Salzburg. Mondsee I think?
• The sets and costumes are quite lovely. The outdoor scenery looks pretty fake, but it's impossible to recreate the beauty of Salzburg in a studio!
• The city of Salzburg. Wunderschön!

• In musical theater, I think it's better to cast a good actor who's not a great singer (Stephen Moyer) than a good singer who's not a great actor (Carrie Underwood). I can forgive vocal imperfections if the emotions of the character are there, but if the character's not there, it doesn't matter how beautiful the singing may be.
• Why is Rolf still wearing shorts when they're all bundled up in coats, hats, and scarves?
• Well that's it folks, the three-hour event that was The Sound Of Music LIVE is over, and we made it through! Thanks for playing everyone, this was fun! I'll have more thoughts tomorrow, but in general I think it was a success, with the exception of the horrible miscasting of poor Carrie Underwood. And it made me realize that a big part of live theater is the audience. Without someone to laugh, applaud, or otherwise react, it falls a little flat. The highlights were Audra McDonald who sounded incredible, and Christian Borle who was just delightful as Max. The kids were all great too, and logistically everything seemed to go off without a hitch. A fascinating experiment in live televised theater. I hope they learn from it (lessen one: cast theater actors) and do it again!

March Musical Madness!

Apparently there's some sort of sports tournament this month that's making everyone want to rank things in the form of brackets. I don't really get it, but when I saw this floating around the internet, I couldn't resist. 64 musicals are entered into this bracket, with many many one-on-one comparisons resulting in one musical theater winner. (Click on the bracket above to enlarge it.)

My method for filling this out was not to pick the "better" or "best" musical, because who am I to judge that? And with such diversity, from Oklahoma! to Book of Mormon, many comparisons are like apples to oranges. Instead, I chose the musicals that I enjoy the most, or that have meant the most to me, or that I see as important in musical theater history. I'm sure there are as many different results as there are people who fill this out. If this looks like fun to you, you can get a blank bracket here and fill it out yourself.

A few notes on some of the comparisons:

• Of the 64 musicals listed, there are 12 I have not seen on stage or screen (marked with a question mark). In those cases I chose the musical I have seen. I concede that those are uninformed decisions, and I may change my mind if and when I see those remaining 12.
• Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that RENT ended up as my ultimate winner. I'm not saying that RENT is the best musical ever written, but it's the one that's meant the most to me in my life, and continues to mean the most to me. When I first saw RENT on the Tonys in 1996 (where it won four awards, including best musical, book, and score), and then live on stage in 1997, I was fresh out of college, living on my own for the first time, going to grad school, with no car (literally "riding my bike midday past the three piece suits"), and it really struck a chord with me. I've seen it 13 times total, could sing the entire soundtrack, and will go see it any opportunity I get.
• Sound of Music ranked pretty high for me for mostly sentimental reasons. I've loved the movie since I was a kid, it was one of the two musicals for which I played in the pit orchestra in high school, and I studied abroad in Salzburg for a semester in college. Watching the movie is very nostalgic for me on many levels. But still, it lost out to...
• Wicked, which is one of those rare musicals that is both a huge success (it's been playing on Broadway for nine years and counting) and is actually really good. It's probably my favorite soundtrack to sing along with in my car.
• West Side Story is another of my favorite musical movies, but the reason it went all the way to the final battle is because of its place in musical theater history. Firstly, it's a collaboration of four giants in the music-theater-dance world - Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), Leonard Berstein (music), Jerome Robbins (choreography), and Arthur Laurents (director). The choreography is iconic and the music has become part of our popular culture. That's the reason it took out Book of Mormon (really unfair of Broadway.com to put them head to head in the first round), Next to Normal (which I think is one of the best musicals written in this century), and ...
• Hair. I love Hair, for itself and for its place in musical theater history. It's the first Broadway musical that reflected what was actually happening in the world right outside the theater. It may seem pretty safe today, but they were burning draft cards on stage in 1968, not to mention the drug use, nudity, and interracial relationships (shortly after the landmark Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia). And it's another one where the music crossed over from the musical theater world into pop culture.
• For someone who often complains about jukebox musicals, Jersey Boys ranked pretty high on my bracket. Partly it's because of lack of competition, but I also think it's the exception that proves the rule. The clever book tells the story of the real musicians and their rise to and fall from fame, instead of some silly made up story to fit awkwardly into the songs.

I could go on and on, but it's Survivor night, so I'll leave it at that. Please comment below if you agree or disagree about a particular match-up!

2014 Update:
Of the 12 musicals I hadn't seen last year, I have seen one of them since - Phantom of the Opera. And I would still rank Oklahoma above it. Although after seeing a magical production of The Music Man by Ten Thousand Things recently, I would rank it above Oklahoma.

2015 Update:
Of the 11 musicals I hadn't seen last year, I have seen two of them since - Oliver! and Pippin. (And I plan to see two more this year - Damn Yankees at the Ordway and Carousel at Bloomington Civic Theatre.) As much as I loved Pippin, no way I'm ranking it above Hair. Oliver! vs. Billy Elliot is a bit tougher, I might have to say Oliver! because of the many familiar songs. In fact I may have to rethink that whole section in light of BCT's delightful production of Guys and Dolls last year. This bracket might look a little different if I filled it out today.

2016 Update:
Here it is, March again, and my CBS soaps are preempted. Must mean it's time to update this bracket. As I mentioned last year, I have checked off two more of those original unknown twelve, Damn Yankees and Carousel. And even though I enjoyed them both, I've still got to give it to The Full Monty (so fun!) and Company (probably my favorite Sondheim). The bracket is still available (although I wish they'd update it with new entries - hello Hamilton!) if you want to play along!