By Randi Bjornstad
Here’s a fascinating fact about Rodgers & Hammerstein’s classic musical theater creation, The Sound of Music, and its enduring appeal: About 83 percent of people in the United States today were not even born yet when the the musical had its debut in 1959.
And yet, the based-on-truth story of a young nun-in-training — who leaves the convent to go and become the surrogate mother for a passel of children aged from preschool to high school (and eventually marries their stiff-upper-lip, widowed, military officer father) still keeps packing in audiences all these decades later.
It will be on stage from Dec. 2 to Dec. 18, 2022, at The Shedd Institute in downtown Eugene.
Of course, the role of Maria for decades has been securely owned by Julie Andrews, who seems to have been born to the part of real-life Maria von Trapp, who told her own story in a 1949 memoir titled The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. It first became a film in Germany in 1956.
The story opens in 1938, not long before the start of World War II. The children’s father, Baron Georg von Trapp, a navy captain, is ordered to take up a commission in the German Navy, but he is anti-Nazi and plans a harrowing escape, with Maria’s help, to flee with the children across the Alps to Austria.
This being a musical, of course, the bare bones of the plot is wrapped and be-ribboned in a bevy of songs that a great number of people can recognize — and probably even sing from memory — to this day, starting with the opening strains of the title song, The Sound of Music (“The Hills are Alive …”). The score also includes the snappy children’s song, Do-Re-Me, and the inspirational Climb Every Mountain, as well as Edelweiss, a paean to the delicate but hardy white Alpine flower, and additional further-the-plot numbers such as Maria, My Favorite Things, The Lonely Goatherd, Sixteen Going on Seventeen, and So Long, Farewell.
The Shedd’s production is directed and choreographed by Heidi Turnquist, with Robert Ashens as music director and conductor. Claire Kepple is Maria, with Dan Pegoda as Baron von Trapp. Other featured roles are Brandon H. Weaver as Max Detweiler, Heidi Turnquist as Elsa von Schraeder, and Caitlin Christopher as the Mother Abbess.
The large performance cast also includes Kara Churchill, Hannah Rudkin, Keri Davis, Grigorii Malakhov, Matthew Michaels, Jordan Andreasen, Riley Given, Wilder Teague, Shae Brodsky, Bailey Ubel, Luy MacKay, Eliyah Chandler, Lucy Geller, Sophie Alexander, Grace White, Anna O’felt, Wyatt Tubbs, Owen Colley, and Mark Molina.
Additional members of the production team are Anna Björnsdotter, costume design; Jim Ralph, scenic design; Connie Huston, scenic design and master painter; Kierstin Kimbell, lighting design and sound/lighting/tech; Riley Given, dance captain; Emily Kidder, conductor’s assistant and rehearsal accompanist; Hayden Wilson, stage manager; Zoë Pouliot, assistant stage manager; Lyn Burg, wardrobe master; Jan Easton, house manager and master carpenter; Alex Lopez, production manager; and Jim Ralph, executive producer.
Members of the orchestra are Emily Kidder, piano; Daniel Cathey, Matt Taylor, Dieter Koch, Christina Boorman, Bob Raga, and Liz Hoffmann, reeds; Chris Mudd, French horn; Cody Simmons and John Davison, trumpets; Glenn Griffith and Richard Lewis, trombone; Nathan Waddell, bass; and Josh Sheetz, percussion.
The Sound of Music at The Shedd Institute
When: 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 2-3, 9-10, and 16-17; 3 p.m. on Dec. 4 and 18
Where: Jaqua Concert Hall, The Shedd Institute, 868 High St. (corner of Broadway and High streets), Eugene
Tickets: $29, $33, $37, $39 (package, group, and student discounts available), at the ticket office, 868 High St., by telephone at 541-434-7000, or online at theshedd.org
Shedd Dinners at Six: Meals served (by reservation only) at 6 p.m. before each evening performance and after matinees, with pre-set menu including salad, entree (vegetarian available), rolls, coffee or tea and dessert, for $25.75 for adults and $19.75 for children 9 years and younger; extra for wine, beer, and soft drinks.Call 541-434-7000 for menus and reservations.
