Julie Chadwick Special to the Chronicle
Audiences can also expect to hear some of their favourite songs (and favourite things) when Chemainus Theatre Festival opens its 2019 season with The Sound of Music on Feb. 15.
“It’s by far the largest show we’ve ever produced at this time of year,” said managing director Randal Huber. “It felt like the right fit for many reasons.”
One is that we have Mamma Mia, which we’re producing next summer, which is a big contemporary musical, so we thought it would be great to have something a little bit more traditional in the opening spot. Traditional but not dated, because The Sound of Music sort of always maintains this wide appeal as a show and has great value to do in terms of its message and content.”
Based on the true story of the Von Trapp family, the original Broadway play was written in 1958, when legendary musical theatre writing team Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein came across Maria von Trapp’s memoirs and began writing a play.
The story follows the love story of Captain von Trapp and his governess Maria as they fall in love and care for his seven children. The production will include crowd favourites such as “My Favourite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Climb Every Mountain,” and “The Sound of Music”.
One way that Chemainus Theatre Festival keep things fresh is to offer an entire season of different plays, says Huber.
“Each year you get six or seven very diverse different types of plays in the year,” says Huber. “So we’ve got The Foreigner which is a Southern comedy, and then we have Lumberjacks in Love, which is this crazy musical spoof which is set in like, Wisconsin. And then we have a George Bernard Shaw play in there, which is a period drama. So it’s all of these different experiences throughout the year.”
The Sound of Music runs until April 6.
