A classic Hammerstein and Rodgers musical, The Sound of Music and its timeless numbers are available for your pleasure now at Lake Worth Playhouse. Continuing one of the strongest seasons of local theater I’ve ever had the pleasure to review, the playhouse delivers the seminal score at a time in America when it’s most needed. The plot, one of defiance in the face of a Nazi oppressor, is about the resilience of family bonds and, of course, music; both loud and proud.
In an ambitious manner, Lake Worth Playhouse’s set for their run of The Sound of Music is grand, white, and full of stained glass, a personal favorite of this reviewer. The audience is met with large, moveable staircases that the tech hands manipulated back and forth, side to side, to create the layering scenes of the Austrian landscape, nearby to the Swiss Alps. Those mountains are viewable to all seated as they are the images depicted in the stained glass that adorned the uppermost area of the stage, right below the rafters. While the set was maneuvered over and over again, the stained images of the mountains were ever present, looming over us, reminding the viewer that they were characters in and of themselves. Special shout out to the Set Designer (Cindi Taylor), Scenic Painters (Taylor, Ma Knoke, Sharon Rogin, and Shelley Rosenblum), and all of its carpenters (Knoke, etc.). Also, the costuming from Jill Williams and Joanne Deprizio was a nice touch for the overall aesthetic of fascist Austria.
If you have not seen the musical in person, or you haven’t seen the movie with the incomparable Dame Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music not only has a stacked cast of singers, dancers, and children, but it also features some of the most recognizable songs in musical-theater history. Particular favorites from this rendition are “My Favorite Things,” “Sixteen Going On Seventeen,” and “Do-Re-Mi.” Most songs feature the lead character Maria Rainer, a nun-in-practice with a certain wanderlust for music and life, played by an absolutely impressive Gabriella Giardina. When you’re sixteen, going on seventeen, you have heavy competition, but Jade Evori Master as Liesl von Trapp does just that; keeps up and shines just as brightly.
The cast is extremely large, but certain standouts include the entire von Trapp family’s children, who often have multiple actors to fill the demand of the role, with the exception of Master’s Liesl. Jaxson Clendenin, Bear Fisch, Ava Anger, Chloe Sinclair, Nate Colton, Zach Lieberman, Juliette Etzel Cabrera, Blair’s Dimisa, Violet Segal, Daisy Tanner, Emilia Bornia, and Zeya Swecker, all of them, are to be commended: you are the reason why this show at the Playhouse, on opening night, was a sight to behold. For this, props also are needed for Director Suzanne Dunn for bringing this to life on the historic stage. One of the most physically present characters of this production, demanding attention to his straight-face and callousness, was Andrew Schaefer’s Captain Georg von Trapp. Both firm and somehow loving, the Captain did what needed to be done.
