NBC Entertainment plans to bring its hills alive with "The Sound of Music" — live.
Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the producing team behind "Smash" and the film versions of "Chicago" and "Hairspray," will manage the show, which has already begun casting, the network announed Friday.
“It isn’t our intention to produce a remake of the movie version of ‘The Sound of Music’ — that would be artistic blasphemy,” Zadan said in a statement. “What we want to do, instead, is to give audiences a completely fresh experience of this great Tony Award-winning stage musical in the form of a classic television event, combined with the spontaneity of a live performance.”
Set in pre-World War II Austria, the show is based on the true story of Maria von Trapp, an aspiring nun who left the Abby to become a governess, falling in love with her employer and questioning her religious calling.
"The Sound of Music" premiered on Broadway in 1959, it broke box-office records and won the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Recently, Zadan and Meron were represented on Broadway with a Tony-winning hit in the 50th-anniversary revival of the musical comedy, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” starring Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette. The revival was nominated for eight Tony Awards, winning one for Larroquette.
