From Broadway To 52nd Street…
The Sound Of Music brought up the curtain of the Lunt Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959 and finished with a blockbuster run of 1443 performances. The show starred Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel. The song My Favorite Things composed by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein went on to become a jazz standard. The show won a Tony Award for Best Musical.
The Story: Based on the Trapp family story the musical takes us on their journey to escape the Nazis. Set in Salzburg, Austria just before World War II, Maria Rainer, one of the postulates from Nonnberg Abbey is wrestling with her decision to joining monastic life or pursue more secular endeavors. With the help of the Mother Abbess she is placed in the home of Captain Georg von Trapp to act as governess to his seven children. As war looms over their happy existence they escape to Switzerland over the Alps.
Details of the von Trapp history were changed for the musical. They lived in a villa outside Salzburg, Maria was a tutor for one child, the names and ages were altered, and the family spent time in Austria after Maria and the Captain were married. Opposing the Nazi regime, he declined a commission in the German Navy, left Austria for Italy, then on to London and finally to the United States. The escape over the mountains on foot provided more drama for the play.
Broadway History: Broadway theatre,commonly called simply Broadway, is theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Along with London’s West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.
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