Friday, April 4, 2003 | 8:49 a.m.
"The Sound of Music" comes alive at the Summerlin Library Performing Arts Center beginning tonight. The Signature Productions show runs, intermittently, through April 26, with evening and matinee performances. Nancy Andersen Weakley plays Maria, and James Horrocks is Captain Georg Von Trapp.
The world-famous musical, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and music by Richard Rodgers, was created almost by chance. The real-life Maria Von Trapp told the story of her family to a ghost-writer in approximately 1955. In 1956 the book was made into a movie in Germany.
Broadway producer Richard Halliday, Mary Martin's husband, wanted to develop a stage musical of the story and asked Rodgers and Hammerstein to write just one song. They declined -- but offered, instead, to co-produce the musical and also write an entirely new score and lyrics.
Fortunately, their offer was accepted. With Mary Martin as Maria, "The Sound of Music" opened at the Lunt-Fontaine Theater in New York City on Nov. 11, 1959.
It won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
The movie version, with Julie Andrews as Maria and Christopher Plummer as the Captain, premiered at the Rivoli Theater in New York City on March 1, 1965, and subsequently ran in original release for 4 1/2 years.
The story of the singing Von Trapp family is well-known -- but, briefly ... The setting is Salzburg, Austria. Maria is a postulant in a convent. However, her mischievous tomboy behavior motivates the Mother Abbess to send her out into the world to help her make up her mind about her future. She becomes a governess for the Von Trapp children in the home of the widowed Captain Georg Von Trapp, who runs his home like a battleship.
It is just prior to Hitler's takeover of Austria, and Nazism threatens Capt. Von Trapp. He announces his engagement to the sophisticated Baroness Schraeder. Maria leaves. However, the Captain realizes his mistake and marries Maria. The family escapes over the Alps into Switzerland.
The memorable music includes not only the title song, but also "My Favorite Things," "Do-Re-Mi," "The Lonely Goatherd," "Edelweiss" and "Climb Ev'ry Mountain."
Director Leslie Fotheringham has directed Signature's productions of "Brigadoon," "The Secret Garden," "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and "Children of Eden."
"In 'Sound of Music,' there's a plot and subplot," she remarked. "The plot is about a young woman who thinks she wants to be a nun but doesn't fit in, and how she brings a regimented household and family back to life. The subplot is the reality of the times and an undercurrent of Hitler's pending invasion of Austria and its impact on the Von Trapps."
Fotheringham, who has a 1996 master's degree in musical theater at Boston Conservatory, has performed in Cincinnati and Akron, Ohio, Alaska and Colorado. She has starred as Christine in "Phantom of the Opera" and Irene Malloy in "Hello, Dolly!"
However, she moved to Las Vegas in September 2001, got married and "didn't want the vagabond actor lifestyle." She now combines teaching third grade at Betsy Rhodes Elementary School with her musical theater talents.
"I want to make Maria as close to the real person as I can within the Rodgers and Hammerstein context," she said. "She ran away from home at 16. She is not docile and demure but speaks her mind. I love the great music, especially songs with the kids. They're great kids, and so talented, down to the youngest one."
Has being a schoolteacher helped her relate to the children?
"Teaching helps me know what to do with and say to them, and sometimes I get a little 'schoolteachery' with them," she admitted.
Although he decided that musical theater would be his career while still in high school, Horrocks earned degrees in human anatomy and physical therapy at the University of Utah. Consequently his "day jobs" are as a physical therapist and as an anatomy and physiology instructor.
His performance career ranged from Shakespeare to Gilbert and Sullivan in summer stock in Salt Lake City, and he appeared in a ski lodge scene with Jim Carrey in "Dumb and Dumber." He has also done voice-overs as the Good Samaritan for the animated "The Living Scriptures." Locally, he performs as vocalist with the John Haig Orchestra, former house band at Caesars Palace.
In studying his role, Horrocks considered the Captain's life. "He is not a fictitious character," he reminded. "He really lived. Why does he behave as he does? Why is he so harsh and distant from his kids? Whey does he run the house like a military camp? Why are the Nazis so interested in him?
"You put the man together like a puzzle and then create the missing pieces."
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