The Sound of Music Live

redsquirrel

redsquirrel

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I started off with my mind made up that there was no way that I would like this show with Carrie Underwood. Yes, I think she's a great country singer. But taking the part of Julie Andrews in one of my favorite musicals was going too far. How dare they mess with it.

Plus Stephen Moyer as Captain Von Trapp seemed strange to me. He is good as vampire Bill on True Blood, but as the Captain?

Well, I was busy when the preview show came on last night so didn't change the channel. Oh my goodness, I was simply blown away.

I also loved seeing the audition process for the "kids", and my are they talented.

Now I can't wait for the show to come on.
 
Isn't it supposed to be December 9th???
 
I just caught the preview during the parade and I'm excited to see this too. Disney has done a stellar job of bringing Mary Poppins to Broadway with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke's support so I think it's possible to do justice to a classic.

I like the idea that they doing this as a live musical rather than as a remake of the movie. Nice change from reality tv and reruns this time of year.

I believe it airs Thursday Dec. 5 at 8pm EST but I'd imagine we will hear about an encore shortly after it airs.
 
I can't wait to see it! Saw some of it today and can't wait. I saw a Broadway rendition of it here in Florida with Richard Chamberlain as the captain and it was amazing! It will be like being at the theater only in your living room!! Julie Andrews will always be my favorite Maria...but this I think will be very good!
 
I am soooo excited to see this, I'm a huge Carrie Underwood and Sound of Music fan. This live performance is based on the play and will be somewhat different than the movie but nevertheless it will be great!
 
Watched first two hours, also fell asleep, missed the last hour. Like most, have seen the movie countless times. Also saw a local stage production, which I really enjoyed.
I guess I was expecting a "stage" production of this, as well, since it was live, but obviously they were using sets. I did enjoy what I saw, tho it was a bit disconcerting to me to have some of the songs sung in different places/scenes than I was used to. The stage production I saw really kept the songs where they appear in the movie.

What threw me was I really saw NOTHING that would have caused Maria to leave and go back to the convent. When she admitted to her Mother Superior that she was feeling things she never had before, and was confused by them, I wondered WHERE and when??

Dang commercials...dozed off right after Maria returned. And evidently they are putting this on DVDs and will have the entire thing out for sale very soon.Thought Steven Moyer (no idea who he is) did a great job as the very stern Captain, and good voice, tho I really was upset and not hearing Edelweiss. LOL
 
I only know Steven Moyer from the show "True Blood". He plays one of the main vampire characters. I kept waiting for his fangs to pop out. LOL Loved that they let him use his own voice with his English accent last night. On "True Blood", he speaks with the accent of a Civil War era upper crust resident of Louisiana.
 
Poirot said:
Watched first two hours, also fell asleep, missed the last hour. Like most, have seen the movie countless times. Also saw a local stage production, which I really enjoyed.
I guess I was expecting a "stage" production of this, as well, since it was live, but obviously they were using sets. I did enjoy what I saw, tho it was a bit disconcerting to me to have some of the songs sung in different places/scenes than I was used to. The stage production I saw really kept the songs where they appear in the movie.

What threw me was I really saw NOTHING that would have caused Maria to leave and go back to the convent. When she admitted to her Mother Superior that she was feeling things she never had before, and was confused by them, I wondered WHERE and when??

Dang commercials...dozed off right after Maria returned. And evidently they are putting this on DVDs and will have the entire thing out for sale very soon.Thought Steven Moyer (no idea who he is) did a great job as the very stern Captain, and good voice, tho I really was upset and not hearing Edelweiss. LOL
Click to expand...

You must have been dozing, when the little girl told her daddy was in love with her and she was in love with daddy. Then she packed up and left. Her feelings for Captain sent her back. And I'm pretty sure they sang Edelweiss.
 
Oh, I saw the little girl tell Maria that...but there was just nothing between Captain and Maria that would have had her taking off like that. Kids say things, and just because her father was watching Maria, it did not mean he was in love with her.
 
I thought Carrie and everyone did a great job. The only thing I didn't like was the rude comments via Twitter . Poor Carrie was NOT trying to be Julie Andrews and people that had only seen the movie complained about the songs missing and such and "speaking" for Julie Andrews . I cannot imagine Julie Andrews being that rude.
It was a little long but other wise I thought it was good. I have never been to a broadway show. I can't compare it in that way. I understand though how it is different to the movie.
 
LOL, I was only on Facebook, and there was none of that. I have seen Broadway shows, (not this one, just local theatre( and the thing is, they have just the huge stage to portray events, scenes, and I have to say, they are very, very clever with the sets. I am from Chicago originally, so saw "Broadway" stage productions of Hello Dolly with Carol Channing, South Pacific, Mame, (3 different versions) a few others. Actually, preferred the stage versions to the movie.
I also have seen local productions of Gypsy, (my son was in that one, it was a "traveling" troup, and I had to put up 6 of the actors, after volunteering for 3. lol) Music Man, Guys & Dolls, and yep, sound of Music. Different, for sure, but I expected it.
With this production, honestly, I was expecting it to be on a stage, so was a bit surprised to see the various actual sets, tho they did a good job with them.
And I did not think Carrie was trying to be Julie Andrews, just as Steven Moyer was certainly not trying to be Christopher Plummer. Scripts are scripts, what the heck is wrong with people? LOL

Heck, when they did the yodel number in the bedroom during the storm, I thought it kind of neat...because I knew there could not probably be puppets, etc for that number.
 
I have met Carrie twice and she is so sweet and nice and to read all the negative twitter comments was getting me quite upset and had to quit reading them. This was not a remake of the movie but the original version of the play which obviously is quite different than the movie. I thought it quite refreshing and fun and I'd like to see anyone of those haters get up there and do three hours worth of songs, dance, and dialogue with no stopping and retakes!
 
And that is what I love about the stage plays. They are live, right now, and I give full credit and admire every single person. They have to remember all their lines, their music, no retakes. If they flub, they just carry right on. At the beginning, when Maria was singing "The Hills are Alive".. near the end of the song, as she was coming down the hill, she seemed to slightly trip or stumble. Did not miss a beat. And sometimes one or two of the kids seemed to be looking (perhaps at director, choreographer???) away, and that tickled me.
Glad I was not on twitter, but I am guessing that a lot of folks just "expected" the play to follow the movie, and did not realize there was a difference. I know I did not, until Squirrelly mentioned it. But really, made no difference to me, as other musical plays have differed from the movies made from them.
 
I agree, Poirot. I give Kudos to the entire cast, stage hands, cameramen, musicians, directors, and all of the technical people behind the scenes. One cameraman for the show works at the Today Show. Friday morning, Al Roker called him in front of the camera to talk about what we didn't see going on behind the scenes during the show.

All of the other people were really hustling to make sure they met their cues for sound effects, music (yep, even the music was live), lighting, etc. The sound stage was in a warehouse the size of a football field! The costume people had to make everything so the actors could be changed quickly. Then other people had to be ready to whisk them off in golf carts if they had to appear on a set that was at the other end of the warehouse.

One other thing to mention......none of the "kids" were professional actors or singers. Most of them hadn't even been on a stage before. A few had been in school or local theater plays.
 
Saw an interview with the woman who played Gretl in the movie, when a child. Egads , they showed side by side clips of Gretl singing the good night song (they also showed side by side clips of Mother Superior asking Maria if she was in love with Captain VonTrapp.
Evidently this woman (am sorry, I forgot her name) had tweeted that "some of the scenes are painful to watch" during the broadcast. She did backtrack a bit, said she loves Carrie Underwood, thinks she is a fantastic singer, and then said she did not think the production values were all that great, or the lighting. But felt that over all, it could have benefited from being filmed, so that some things could be "retakes". At the end, her final comment was that she thought the actress portraying the Baroness Schraeder was terrific, but that perhaps the show could have used someone with more stage experioence in the lead role.

As an aside, they said the show drew 18.5 million viewers, was a huge draw, and success for NBC
 
I read that interview earlier today as well and was floored. It seems that way too many people are trying to compare this production to the movie. NBC never said it was supposed to be a movie remake. I've seen numerous Broadway and Broadway-caliber shows and I thought this was great. Very unique broadcast and the singing was amazing. I give Carrie a lot of credit for trying something new--her acting wasn't terrible and she embraced the show tunes style of singing very well. I saw Ricky Martin perform in Evita on Broadway earlier this year and he sounded nothing like his pop albums.

Stephen Moyer sang Edelweiss near the end during the show the family performed in, right before they went to Switzerland.

I caught Carrie's slip on the hill too.

My friend told me the broadcast is available on Hulu.com for free. I imagine it will go away once the DVD is released.
 
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