Lloyd Webber Confirms Sound of Music for May 2003Date: 25 September 2002
Andrew Lloyd Webber has confirmed that his revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music will make its home next year at the West End's Victoria Palace, as previously predicted (See The Goss, 27 Aug 02). In an interview on ITV's The Frank Skinner Show last night, the composer-turned-producer said that the new production would open at the theatre in May 2003, the same month that he would mount a revised and expanded version of Tell Me on a Sunday, starring Denise Van Outen, at another, unconfirmed venue.
The revival has been talked about for more than a year now. At one point, Lloyd Webber himself reported that it would take over at the West End's Palace Theatre, displacing the long-running Les Miserables, but this statement was quickly challenged by Les Mis producer Cameron Mackintosh and subsequently retracted.
Though The Sound of Music casting has not yet been announced, Maria Friedman has long been touted for the role of Maria, made famous by Julia Andrews (pictured) on screen. It's thought that the later-than-expected opening (a year after the official Richard Rodgers Centenary celebrations) is intentional, in order to give Friedman time to recover from the birth of her child.
Friedman's many West End musical credits include Sunday in the Park with George, Chicago, The Witches of Eastwick and Passion. The last won her an Olivier for Best Actress in a Musical; she won another Olivier, for Best Entertainment, for her one-woman show Maria Friedman - By Special Arrangement.
The Sound of Music was one of the best-known musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein, whose other collaborations included The King and I, Oklahoma and South Pacific. Based on the 1949 book The Trapp Family Singers, written by Maria Von Trapp about her real-life experiences as a trainee nun who falls in love with a widowed naval captain and his children in pre-war Austria, The Sound of Music opened in 1959 on Broadway, where it ran for 1,443 performances and won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
The story and its score - including "My Favourite Things", "Do-Re-Mi", " Sixteen Going On Seventeen", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Edelweiss", "So Long, Farewell" and the title song - was immortalised for generations of filmgoers by the 1965 Hollywood version starring Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The stage show was revived on Broadway in 1998 while, in recent years, a sing-a-long version of the film has become a cult hit in London and on tour in the UK.
This week, the stage predecessor of another film blockbuster, Grease, moves into the Victoria Palace for a limited run to 1 March 2003. Exact dates for The Sound of Music's berth at the theatre have not yet been confirmed. For further titbits from Andrew Lloyd Webber's television interview, see The Goss.
- by Terri Paddock
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