Sound Of Music, The - The Making Of Rodgers And Hammerstein'S Classic Musical

The Sound of Music was the last--and most successful--collaboration of two giants of the musical theater, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. Enjoying a long run on Broadway and then transformed into a major hit film The Sound of Music remains among the most produced musicals by professional and amateur companies around the world. Yet, the success of this show was not assured from the start. Playwright/critic/producer Max Wilk was working for Leland Hayward in the late 1950s as a TV producer. Stage and screen actress Mary Martin owned the right to the Van Trapp family story, and hired Hayward to produce the Broadway show and hired the book writers and Rodgers & Hammerstein to write it. Wilk thought the idea was terrible, as did everybody else in Hayward's office. When the show opened in New York, the reviews were not good . . . in fact, the show was panned as being too saccharine. Nonetheless the audience loved it, and the show ran for over 2000 performances. And later, of course, it was adapted to one of America's most beloved films and biggest box-office hits. The Sound of Music: The Making of Rodger and Hammerstein's Classic Musical tells the full story of the making of the show, from the first rough ideas through the tryouts, fine tuning, and eventual triumph--all from an eyewitness to the events themselves. Wilk brings a musical theater historian's eye to the work, along with his passionate involvement as a witness to this history.