Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Theatre hosts ‘The Sound of Music’ sing-a-long
Six members of the audience assembled for Saturday’s sing-a-long showing of “The Sound of Music” at the Ironwood Theatre are dressed as nuns, including, from left: first row, Colleen Britton, Bruce Crossing, and Whitney Johnson and Rhonda Leaf of Ewen, and second row, Bette Rigoni, Regan Moilanen and Lacey Kaare, all of Ewen.
IRONWOOD — The Ironwood Theatre was alive with “The Sound of Music” Saturday evening as upwards of 200 folks took part in a sing-a-long showing of the 1965 Academy Award winning film.
The adaptation of Rogers and Hammerstein’s beloved Broadway musical of the same name stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, seven precocious, yet very musical children, and a host of nuns and Nazis. Set in Salzburg, Austria, in “the last days of the Golden Thirties,” Maria, a wannabe nun, shows up at the von Trapp mansion a naïve governess and sings her way into the hearts of the children and their father, Capt. von Trapp. Soon the Nazis call him to war and the nuns help whisk the singing family away to safety in Switzerland.
Many of the songs became favorites of theater-goers and movie watchers through the years. Saturday’s sing-a-long projection included the lyrics in large print along the bottom of the screen, changing color as they were to be sung – a sort of karaoke style or perhaps, Mitch Miller follow-the-bouncing-ball, for an older set.
The audience included young and old. A couple dozen arrived in costume and paraded on stage beforehand. Theatre manager Bruce Greenhill and board member Mark Silver acted as hosts. There were nuns, a smattering of girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes and even a pair of warm woolen mittens. Virginia, 4, and Siena, 2, Rainaldo, of Minneapolis, took home the prize for best costumes in their brightly colored dresses. They attended with their grandparents, John and Leeann Garske, of Ironwood.
The opening shots of the movie on the large screen in the old movie house included vast panoramas moving over the Alps and were met by oohs and ahs from the audience. A small cheer went up as Salzburg was sighted. A larger cheer was heard when Maria was first seen spinning circles through the tall grass on the hills outside the abby. And so the movie, the singing and the fun began — one musical theater hit after another: “The hills are alive with the sound of music,” “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” “Sixteen going on seventeen,” “My favorite things.” “Do, Re, Mi,” “Climb every mountain” and “Edelweiss.”
And on Saturday, just like every other time the story has been told, Maria and the von Trapps found true love and freedom through “The Sound of Music.” They just had a little extra help this time.
