According to director Roger DeLaurier, much of his delight in The Sound of Music comes from the skill of the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein creating music and lyrics and Lindsay and Crouse authoring this musical's book. For DeLaurier, this is an apt and compelling story that has been firmly and dexterously transformed from its original source material to one of the great classics of the American Musical Theater. Its musical sensibilities and sensitivity, its celebration of the family, its fascination with the human potential for re-invention in order to survive, succeed, or transcend the challenges and limitations of circumstance, and its conviction that we can all triumph over the horrors and brutality of war, give any audience a taste of the inventors' joy and belief in community despite the impact of difficult times.

Ultimately for DeLaurier, this is a personal story. Through the youthful Maria, we explore both her journey from the abbey to the secular world, from the solitude and stability of the cloister to the energy and the risk of marriage and relocation in wartime Austria, and its parallel in her shepherding of Leisl’s journey of first love with Rolf. In PCPA’s 2007 production, this is a hopeful story about the search for "the true path in life” – where we must "climb every mountain until [we] find our dream.”

The production is also about our connection to place and how our roots inform our faith and our sense of “nationalism” – in this dramatic world we encounter both good and bad forms of that political sensibility. And, it is about redemption, and how music can express that experience in poignant and powerful ways. Through his children’s song, the Captain rediscovers himself and what he truly loves and values. That discovery leads to his transformation and his ability to reconnect to his family, his homeland, and his true love, Maria, by creating music anew.

Based loosely on Maria Von Trapp’s The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (published in 1949), The Sound of Music was the brainchild of director Vincent J. Donahue and his good friend actress and icon, Mary Martin. Donahue had been asked by Paramount Pictures to view two popular German films based on the life of the Trapp Family singers and create a vehicle for Audrey Hepburn. Donahue was intrigued with the concept but favored his friend Martin over the studio’s choice, Hepburn. Donahue and Hepburn approached the well-respected writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse who streamlined and condensed the events of the real Maria’s story. They changed timelines, names and genders of children, foregrounded the romantic elements, restructured the Captain’s nature, and sent the Von Trapps to freedom in Switzerland.
The delightful Max Detweiler was also a complete fiction as the Trapp Family was represented and coached by the family priest, Father Franz Wasner for twenty years.

The original idea of Donahue and Martin was to incorporate the repertoire of the Trapp Family Singers throughout the play. Martin also spoke with her good friends Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II about a new song that would be written for her as a solo. Rogers and Hammerstein were dubious about contributing to the repertoire which contained classic works by Schubert and Brahmns as well as various well-known hymns. They countered with the suggestion that the play become a full musical for which they would write the entire score. There was one caveat. Martin and Donahue would have to wait until they finished their present project, Flower Drum Song. Martin and Donahue agreed. Flower Drum Song opened in December 1958 and by summer of 1959, Rodgers and Hammerstein were immersed in the new project. With its new title, The Sound of Music premiered in New Haven in October and opened on Broadway on November 16, 1959. Mary Martin starred with Theodore Bikel as Captain Von Trapp. The production ran for over 1400 performances and won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

The first international production opened at the Palace Theatre in London, May 1961, and until 2003, was the longest continuously running American musical in London history (Chicago passed The Sound of Music mark of 6 years). Work began on the film version in 1965 with Christopher Plummer as the Captain and Julie Andrews (fresh from her success in Mary Poppins) as Maria. Filmed on location in Salzburg, Austria, the film proved to be a cinematic hit with audience and critics alike and went on to win five Academy Awards including Best Picture. Maria Von Trapp and two of her daughters even appear in a cameo shot as citizens passing along a Salzburg street as Andrews belts out I Have Confidence.  Various productions have been staged since 1959 including the first Austrian production in 2005 at the Vienna Volksoper and a 2006 revival in London which cast its Maria from contestants on a high-publicity BBC reality show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

While a great commercial success since its premiere, The Sound of Music has undergone significant title change across its international production history. To the French, it is La Melodie du Bonheur (The Melody of Happiness), for Germans, Meine Laede, Meine Traume (My Songs, My Dreams). In Italy, it becomes Tutti insieme Appassionatamente (All Together Passionately), while in Spain, it is Sonrisas y Lagrimas (Smiles and Tears). And while the Portuguese refer to it as Musica do Coracao (The Music of the Heart), in Brazil (a Portuguese-speaking nation) it is Um Novice Rebel (The Rebel Novice).

For Rodgers and Hammerstein, it was their final collaboration as Hammerstein died of cancer in August 1960. The final song he wrote was Edelweiss. The two additional songs composed by Rodgers for the 1965 film (I Have Confidence and Something Good) made their first appearance on the stage in the 1981 Petula Clark London Revival. Despite being a 51-year-old Maria, Clark was praised by Maria Von Trapp as the most authentic portrayal of her younger self.

In real life, the Captain and Maria married eleven years before the Anschluss and it was not a love match for Maria.  In her book, she describes how “I really and truly was not in love. I liked him but didn’t love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children.” Originally, Maria was sent to the family from Nonnberg Abbey as a nurse/tutor to a single child recovering from scarlet fever rather than a governess to all. There were 10 not 7 children, the eldest daughter was also named Maria, and the eldest child was a son not a daughter.

Georg, in real life was a warmhearted parent who loved his family’s musical activities; in fact, the family was active musically long before Maria arrived.  He was a WWI war hero in the Austrian navy who was granted the title of baron as a result of his valor. He retired from the navy in 1919 when Austria lost all of her seaports.

Maria was born in 1905 Vienna and orphaned at an early age. Raised as an atheist and socialist by a distant uncle, Maria experienced a “religious awakening” in her college years. Having graduated, she entered the Benedictine Abbey of Nonnberg in Salzburg as a novice. After two years, she was sent to the von Trapp family because her educational training made her the best qualified person for the position. Maria was not as ideal as she is presented in the play; she had a terrible temper and could be quite strong-minded and stubborn.

The family originally left Austria on a train for Italy (not over the mountains with suitcases to Switzerland) and eventually America without disguising their intention to make this departure permanent. Georg had already refused a commission, an invitation to sing at Hitler’s birthday party, and to fly the Nazi flag.  Georg had been born in Zadar (present day Croatia) which became a part of Italy in 1920 and was thus an Italian citizen and could travel freely to his “birth nation.”

In the early 1940s, the family purchased a farm in Stowe, Vermont, and developed a music camp which they ran on breaks in their touring schedule. The family (except Georg) became naturalized citizens through application and military service during WWII. Georg died in 1947 and was buried on the family estate. In 1950, the Trapp Family Lodge formally opened and continues to operate today (rebuilt as a 93 room resort following a major fire in 1980). The family ceased touring in 1955 as the grown children left to pursue other activities including medicine, teaching, farming and missionary work in New Guinea.

The von Trapps received little of the huge profits garnered by the musical. When Maria sold the film rights to the German producers, she inadvertently signed away all fiscal rights to future productions. The producers of the play did solicit advice from Maria, but listened to very little of it. In a 1998 New York Times interview, Johannes von Trapp (Maria and Georg’s son born in the U.S.) stated that “we are about environmental sensitivity, artistic sensitivity. The Sound of Music simplifies everything. I think perhaps reality is at the same time less glamorous but more interesting than the myth.”