audra mcdonald, laura benanti and christian borle, tony winners all, join carrie underwood and stephen moyer in the nbc live production of the original stage version of 'the sound of music' this coming december.
(the film tweaked the original production by cutting and rearranging musical numbers)
audra will play the mother abbess once again breaking the 'color barrier' that she first did in the lincoln center production of 'carousel' that sent her career soaring. bravo to the network and producers for this brave casting. i am almost certain there were no black abbesses in austria in 1939. she will get to sing 'climb every mountain' and 'my favorite things' with carrie underwood's maria. this is how it was originally played but changed for the film.
laura benanti and christian borle will get to perform two songs that were unfortunately cut from the 1965 oscar winner: 'no way to stop it' and 'how can love survive'. they are two of my favorites from the score.
i don't know much about carrie underwood except that she has huge shoes to fill taking on the julie andrews role. i wish her well.
but with audra and laura onboard there is no doubt i will be there.
stephen moyer will portray capt. von trapp and ms underwood the novice turned governess maria.
audra, laura and christian will portray the mother abbess, baroness schrader and uncle max respectively. they all fit these roles perfectly.
