"True Blood's" Stephen Moyer and Singer Carrie Underwood To Star in NBC's The Sound of Music
8/23/2013
by Philiana Ng


"True Blood's" Stephen Moyer will star opposite Carrie Underwood in the Dec. 5 live holiday production The Sound of Music, NBC announced Friday.

Moyer will portray decorated World War I hero Capt. Georg Von Trapp, the single father of seven children. Living in Austria on the cusp of World War II, the militaristic but warm-hearted Von Trapp engages a young governess, Maria (Underwood), whom he hires to take care of his children.



The three-hour production is based on the original 1959 Broadway production of The Sound of Music, which starred Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel. The play won the Tony Award as best musical, with Martin winning as best actress.

The 1965 film adaptation starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, going on to win five Academy Awards, including best picture.



The Sound of Music is executive produced by Neil Meron and Craig Zadan. Beth McCarthy-Miller and Rob Ashford will serve as directors.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/true-bloods-stephen-moyer-star-613616

First Look at NBC's The Sound of Music; Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti, Christian Borle Join Cast
9/16/13


The Sound of Music has added Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti and Christian Borle to its cast. Carrie Underwood and Stephen Moyer lead the NBC musical special's cast.



"Private Practice" star McDonald, who has won five Tonys, will play Mother Abbess.

Benanti, known to NBC viewers for her work on "Go On" and "Law & Order: SVU", will paly Elsa Schrader. She previously won a Tony for Gypsy.

"Smash" star Borle will play Max Dettweiler and recently took home a Tony for Peter and the Starcatcher.



The three-hour production will be based on the 1959 Broadway production.

The Sound of Music airs live on Thursday, December 5 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.







Check out the newly released poster featuring Carrie Underwood as Maria:


http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1355851/thumbs/o-SOUND-OF-MUSIC-570.jpg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/sound-of-music-carrie-underwood-maria-photo_n_3936732.html?

Q8uXO2n4j4Y

NBC's Sound of Music Live! Does Something Very Good
by Matt Webb Mitovich
12/6/13


Facing off against 100-percent original broadcast competition throughout its entire three-hour run, NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! on Thursday night put 18.5 million total bums in the seats (as they say on Broadway), while scoring a 4.6 rating.

That marks NBC’s largest non-sports Thursday audience since May 2004 (when "Frasier’s" finale night averaged 22.6 mil) and its best non-sports Thursday demo number since the April 2009 "ER" finale (5.2).

Save for its opening face-off against the always formidable "Big Bang Theory" — which won the 8 o’clock half-hour in the demo, 4.6 vs. 4.3 — SOML at least doubled the numbers of 9 of the night’s 11 other broadcast programs.

http://tvline.com/2013/12/06/sound-of-music-live-ratings-nbc/

how many of you watched it? What did you think of it?

http://t.co/WvVKlu0ehz

The "Idol" alum sure could sing. But, says Hank Stuever, "When Underwood spoke her lines, she was as flat as the label on a Swiss Miss package of cocoa." Even Stephen Moyer struggled in this unusual format. PLUS: NBC's gamble paid off (http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/columnists/verne-gay/sound-of-music-and-carrie-underwood-largely-a-success-1.6550556), give NBC credit for tackling the challenge (http://variety.com/2013/tv/reviews/the-sound-of-music-live-tv-review-nbc-1200915170/), and "Vampire Von Trapp" (http://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/06/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-carrie-underwood/) alternated between German and English accents while Underwood spoke in a Southern accent.

"Sound of Music Live" director defends Carrie Underwood: She was in a "lose-lose situation" (http://t.co/5VXmeRffXy)
Former "SNL" director Beth McCarthy-Miller is glad there were very few problems, though she has read a few reviews. "I think it was a lose-lose situation for her because I think everyone had such memories of Julie Andrews," she says. "I think it’s so hard to try to recreate such an iconic role, but I was blown away by her, and I've never seen anyone work harder in my life." PLUS: Twitter made (http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/the-sound-of-music-live-five-reasons-we-couldnt-stop-watching/2155825) the whole event worthwhile, celebs became critics (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2013/12/06/with-the-sound-of-music-live-everyones-a-critic-including-celebs-on-twitter/) on Twitter, Cameron Diaz (http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2013/12/sound-music-live-experienced-cameron-diazs-twitter-feed/355865/) had a field day live-tweeting, more celebrity reaction (http://www.eonline.com/news/488103/sound-of-music-live-cameron-diaz-rob-lowe-miranda-lambert-anna-kendrick-live-tweet-the-show), its unprofessionalism is what made (http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/12/06/sound_of_music_live_with_carrie_underwood_reviewed.html) it so great to watch, "Liesl" and "Gretl" (http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2013/12/sound-of-music-live-liesl-gretl) slam the remake, and its success will lead to more big TV events (http://www.vulture.com/2013/12/sound-of-music-live-ratings-high.html).

I wanted to watch but I totally forgot about it but I do love Carrie. I think she is this generation's Dolly.

The Original Film's Von Trapp Children Respond to NBC's The Sound of Music Live!
by EW Staff
Dec 6, 2013


More than 18 million people tuned in to listen to the sound of Carrie Underwood and a new group of Von Trapp Family singers Thursday night during NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! But what did the actors who played the Von Trapp children in the 1965 film version think?

EW talked with four of the seven to see if it became one of their favorite things or if they wanted to say so long, farewell to the live theatrical adaptation.





Angela Cartwright (Brigitta)

I really wanted to like it, because I’m not stodgy about trying to keep things always the way that they are, and I like innovation and stuff like that, but it couldn’t make up its mind about whether it was a theater production or if they were trying to do the movie.

It was very strange and I think the word “live” was very misleading. … “Live” makes you think it’s going to be live on stage, and even though the sets are very kind of theater-like, it felt like it was taped. … I thought some parts were really miscast.

First of all, I don’t think the Captain [Stephen Moyer] was old enough to have seven children. And he didn’t have a lot of chemistry with Carrie. I hated her wigs and her clothes. It made it feel very old-fashioned, it was strange. I think it just tried too hard.

Also, the Mother Abbess [Audra McDonald], it was just weird. I think of a Mother Abbess as older and wiser, she runs the whole abbey, I just didn’t get it. That whole “Favorite Things” that they did where she was pretending she was 10. … I think she’s a wonderful singer, Audra McDonald, she was just miscast, and I think they all tried really hard to not mimic the movie.

It was almost like a totally different reading on some of the lines that didn’t come across as sincere. And people that see this movie, the original, they know it, they know it inside and out, and it was a big challenge to begin with, so they should have really, in my opinion, stuck to being the play, just the theater, and not thrown in a song that was written for the movie, like 'Something Good'.









Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich)

The times didn’t line up [Hammond lives in Australia], but I have seen bits and pieces on the Net, and it looks great. … For me, Maria will always be Julie Andrews, and that’s embedded in my DNA.

And I’ve toured with Julie here in Australia last year, and it’s all still so fresh in my mind that it’s very hard for me to see anybody else in that role, but that said, look, I know some of the public resists the idea of anybody else playing Maria, but what people get confused about is that the movie and the stage play are two very different things, and there are probably 40 professional productions a year of the play, which is what Carrie did, and so she was just yet another Maria in the stage production of The Sound of Music.

She wasn’t trying to copy the movie, and nor was NBC trying to copy the movie. … I thought going with somebody like Carrie who has a beautiful voice and who has her own following, I thought, “What a fascinating idea,” because it’s looking outside the box a little bit. It’s not just getting another Broadway singer; it’s somebody who comes from a background that in a funny way kind of is a reflection of the real Maria, because the real Maria grew up on a farm, she was a country girl.

I hope Carrie hears or reads about all of our congratulations and best wishes to her, because she certainly deserves them.









Debbie Turner (Marta)

I thought the singing was just spot-on, beautiful. The singing was just unbelievable. I thought Carrie Underwood, I thought she did a really nice job. She’s just so adorable. She’s just beautiful and in the close-up shots, I’m thinking, “This is hi-def!”

I thought the kids, of course, were all adorable. I thought, for a play version — you know, people are comparing it to the movie, and it isn’t the movie, it’s the stage play. Comparing it to that, which is what I was comparing it to, I thought it was well done, very well done. I thought the costumes were just amazing. I was in awe of all the different outfits.

I thought the woman that played Mother Abbess [Audra McDonald], her 'Climb Ev’ry Mountain' brought tears to my eyes. … The one piece that I felt was missing from when you see the live version of the play is you didn’t get a reaction from the audience. They didn’t play that. There’s little clips that definitely get a chuckle or a laugh. I somehow thought they were going to be in front of a live audience.









Kym Karath (Gretl)

I personally love Carrie Underwood, I just didn’t think this was that great. … The problem is that we’re not used to seeing the play version. I don’t know that they actually were even trying to do the play version, because it does not last three hours. I think there were some serious issues with the production.

One of the things that I found the most disturbing, actually, I thought some of the dialog was pretty poor. I found in the production value, there was very little respect for keeping things consistent in terms of the period of time that the play is taking place.

It’s taking place in the late ’30s. They just disregarded things that had to do with that timeframe, and maybe they were trying to make it more contemporary, but there’s only so much you can do without risking the integrity of the entire production.

I actually found the portrayal of the baroness by Laura Benanti — I thought she was just lovely. They had tweaked that character, but she was just lovely. But she’s a very experienced stage actress, and I think that made a difference. I think people would have been better served if it wasn’t live and you could have done what you do with film, which is stop and do it again if it’s not exactly the right take.

Listen, it’s very close to my heart. I just don’t think things were done as well as they should have been done, and I think that extends to pretty much every aspect of it. Ultimately, I think I probably would have liked it to have seen it just better directed. And for them to have made some other choices in terms of how they staged things and how they used their time.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/12/06/sound-of-music-original-von-trapp-children/

Carrie Underwood Responds to Sound of Music Critics
12/9/13


How do you solve a problem like mean people? Jesus, according to Carrie Underwood.

After critics slammed the "The Sound of Music Live!" star's performance -- with Kym Karath, who played the original Gretl, calling it "painful to watch" -- Underwood took to Twitter to do a little venting herself.

"Plain and simple: Mean people need Jesus. They will be in my prayers tonight... 1 Peter 2:1-25"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/09/carrie-underwood-sound-of-music-critics_n_4412146.html?

Nothing but class from Carrie Underwood.


She's not a trained actress, but she did a great job on the songs... very solid, especially considering that she's only the second person to do that part (in most people's experience). There aren't any more Julie Andrews' out there, but while Underwood isn't the best actress out there, I think it's great that they tried this.

Let's see Beyonce try to do a live show on TV for three hours (without lip synching that is). Never happen.

I like Kym Karath, she was my all time favorite guest star on the Brady Bunch.

But let's face it, any kid could have done what she did in the movie...which was mostly nothing.

NBC To Rebroadcast The Sound of Music Live! Saturday as Great Ratings Continue To Pour In
by LISA DE MORAES, TV Columnist
December 10, 2013


NBC announced this afternoon it will repeat The Sound of Music Live! on Saturday, Dec. 14, 8-11 PM ET/PT.

It's a Wonderful Life has been bumped to Friday at 8PM.



Craig Zadan and Neil Meron’s live staging of The Sound of Music continues to shower NBC with ratings. Immediately after Thursday’s broadcast of the musical re-staging was watched by an average of nearly 19 million viewers, NBC stations’ late-local news shot up 75% in households in the 56 metered markets (7.0 rating vs. season average 4.0 rating).

That kind of payoff is sure to make local station execs happy, given that NBC reported a near-record number of promos run by both its O&O stations and NBC affiliates for a one-night event, not to mention advance coverage they’d given the live event before its broadcast on their local air and on their web sites.

The network recently announced that they are looking into doing another musical special. Details on this are not yet known.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/12/nbc-to-rebroadcast-the-sound-of-music-saturday-as-great-ratings-continue-to-pour-in/

[B]NBC To Rebroadcast The Sound of Music Live!
The network recently announced that they are looking into doing another musical special. Details on this are not yet known.




I bet it will be The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with Sylvester Stallone. :rolleyes:

I bet it will be The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with Sylvester Stallone. :rolleyes:kat dennings of 2 broke girls joked on twitter that she thought it would be garth brooks in the shawshank redemption:lol:

Sound of Music Live! Soars
by Matt Webb Mitovich
12/23/13


As if NBC needed further validation to set in motion another live musical production for the 2014 holiday season, Sound of Music Live!‘s numbers have swelled to 21.84 million total viewers and a 5.62 demo rating, with Live+7 DVR playback factored in.

Excluding sports, that marks NBC’s most-watched Thursday since the night of the "Frasier" finale (which drew 22.6 million on May 13, 2004). And when considering available data for SMOL‘s Dec. 14 encore, a total of 44.2 million viewers watched at least a portion of either telecast.

http://tvline.com/2013/12/23/days-of-our-lives-cast-daniel-cosgrove-girls-season-3-trailer/

I didn't watch it but I'd like to see it only out of curiosity. I watched clips of it during the Macy's' Thanksgiving Day parade and what I saw was pretty good. It's out on DVD already, though so maybe I'll just watch it that way.

I saw around the first hour. Carrie Underwood is no Julie Andrews, and the classic version is easily better. It's really sad how much better Carrie's version did this month. I agree with the Von Trapp family that Anne Hathaway would have been a better choice.

It was horrible, we couldn't tolerate it very long.