The Sound of Music: More News and a Trailer

So, I think that one of the main thing that viewers of NBC's live stage version of The Sound of Music will complain about is that it isn’t like the movie. I just read the list of songs for the soundtrack, which will be released around December 3rd, and it looks like they will be using the script for the original Broadway version, and not the movie. I’m excited that they’re actually doing the stage version.

Some of the differences from the stage version and the movie are:

• “My Favorite Things” will be sung by the Mother Abbess (Audra McDonald) to Maria before she goes to the Von Trapp’s, instead of Maria singing it to the children during the thunder storm
• That means Maria will sing “The Lonely Goatherd” to the children when they are afraid of the thunder storm, not while presenting a puppet show to their father and Baroness Schraeder
• Maria won’t sing “I Have Confidence,” which was written for the movie
• They will be doing two songs that were not in the movie: "How Can Love Survive," and my favorite song from the musical, “No Way to Stop It.” I'm excited to hear Laura Benanti and Christian Borle sing both of these songs.

The Von Trapp children have been cast. The majority of the kids have theatre backgrounds, and since they didn't cast any "big names," I'm sure they can act and sing or they wouldn't have been cast. Actually, I'm pretty happy with their casting so far, I just hope Carrie can act and Stephen Moyer can sing. *wink* The young actors are: Ariane Rinehart (Liesl), Michael Nigro (Fredrich), Ella Watts-Gorman (Louisa), Joe West (Kurt), Sophia Caruso (Brigitta), Grace Rundhaug (Marta), and Peyton Ella (Gretl).

I am getting more and more excited about the production, and I hope that it gets good reviews and ratings and that NBC and other networks will produce more musical productions like this one.

EW has just posted a trailer for the musical. Since the show will be broadcast live, the trailer shows rehearsal footage. Fun!