The
Fiction
The
Broadway Play
Sound
of Music Film
The
Cast
The
Plot
The
Director
A
Film is made
Sound of Music Musical
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Rodgers and Hammerstein
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The Broadway Play
It
was Paramount Pictures that bought the film rights the same year (1956).
After viewing the German film, Vincent Donahue, Broadway and television
director, saw a perfect role for Mary Martin, a Broadway star he had worked
with earlier ("Annie Get Your Gun").
In the meantime Paramount had dropped the option and no longer owned the film rights, so Donahue contacted Maria in New Guinea, where she was doing missionary work. She did not answer his letters because she was not at all interested in her book being performed on the Broadway. But Richard Halliday, Mary Martin's husband and producer, did not give up and finally persuaded Maria to see his wife in "Annie Get Your Gun". Maria was impressed and reversed her opinion. Halliday made a deal with the German producers and shared the royalties with Maria.
Rodgers
and Hammerstein wrote the music and acted as coproducers. The show had
1,443 performances, won six Tony Awards (one for Best Musical) and sold
over 3 million albums. It was the filming of the story that, however,
made The Sound of Music world famous, and so popular that today nearly
every English speaking child is raised with its songs.
1998 was the year of a big Sound of Music Broadway Revival. Again, the Sound of Music magic worked; it had not faded in all the years. Rebecca Luker and Michael Siberry played the "von Trapps" and Susan H. Schulman directed at New York's Martin Beck Theatre.