The Gazette feature staff helpfully models some possible "Sing-a-long Sound of Music" get-ups, courtesy of Huntington's Magic Makers National Costume Supply Shop. Clockwise from top left: Douglas Imbrogno as Captain Von Trapp, Julie Robinson as Maria, Sara Busse as Mother Superior and Bill Lynch and Amy Robinson as two of the Von Trapp children.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Unleash your inner Maria -- or your inner Von Trapp or inner Mother Superior -- as the hills come alive with one campy screening of "The Sound of Music."
CLICK TO VIEW SLIDESHOW: See a musical slideshow of outtakes from the gazz "Sound of Music" photo shoot for this story at Magic Makers National Costume Shop in Huntington, W.Va.
RELATED STORY: 10 Fun Factoids about "The Sound of Music"
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Unleash your inner Maria -- or your inner Von Trapp or inner Mother Superior -- as the hills come alive with one campy screening of "The Sound of Music" at 7 p.m. Friday, June 26 at the Capitol Center Theater, 123 Summers St.
The audience will be part of the point at a free showing of "Sing-a-Long Sound of Music." You are heartily encouraged to come dressed as Maria, Captain Von Trapp, a nun, a member of the Third Reich, the Von Trapp kids or any off-the-wall connection to the 1965 movie you can dream up.
"I'm sure people will come also with some ideas of their own," says Frieda Forsley, who along with Marlette Carter co-hosts this Charleston Stage Company and FestivALL event.
The nun at the head of the room will be Forsley, borrowing from the Stage Company's prop shop and its recent staging of the nun-centric "Doubt." "That's going to be the real experience -- to participate and sing along," she said. "Who doesn't know the music?"
If by chance you were raised by wolves in a cave and have no ancestral memory of "My Favorite Things," "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," "Do-Re-Mi," "Edelweiss" or any other of the show's songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, karaoke lyrics will scroll by on screen.
You get a prop bag, too, which you're expected to use, which includes your own personal edelweiss -- a plastic version, not the actual white flower found high in the Alpine hills -- to wave. "There will be a 'Sound of Music 101' prop-handling class," Forsley noted.
Hissing, cooing and hand gestures will also come into play based on advance analysis Forsley and Carter undertook of the film, starring Julie Andrews as Maria and Christopher Plummer as Von Trapp, along with a host of Nazis, nuns and Austrian youngsters.
"We have sat through the movie and just sort of riffed on it the whole time," she said.
Forsley hated to give away too much, but deigned to reveal moves for the opening of "Do-Re-Mi," whose melody we're about to burn into your brain for the rest of the day: "'Do,' a deer, a female deer/ 'Re,' a drop of golden sun/ 'Me,' a name I call myself..."
CLICK TO VIEW SLIDESHOW: See a musical slideshow of outtakes from the gazz "Sound of Music" photo shoot for this story at Magic Makers National Costume Shop in Huntington, W.Va.
RELATED STORY: 10 Fun Factoids about "The Sound of Music"
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Unleash your inner Maria -- or your inner Von Trapp or inner Mother Superior -- as the hills come alive with one campy screening of "The Sound of Music" at 7 p.m. Friday, June 26 at the Capitol Center Theater, 123 Summers St.
The audience will be part of the point at a free showing of "Sing-a-Long Sound of Music." You are heartily encouraged to come dressed as Maria, Captain Von Trapp, a nun, a member of the Third Reich, the Von Trapp kids or any off-the-wall connection to the 1965 movie you can dream up.
"I'm sure people will come also with some ideas of their own," says Frieda Forsley, who along with Marlette Carter co-hosts this Charleston Stage Company and FestivALL event.
The nun at the head of the room will be Forsley, borrowing from the Stage Company's prop shop and its recent staging of the nun-centric "Doubt." "That's going to be the real experience -- to participate and sing along," she said. "Who doesn't know the music?"
If by chance you were raised by wolves in a cave and have no ancestral memory of "My Favorite Things," "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," "Do-Re-Mi," "Edelweiss" or any other of the show's songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, karaoke lyrics will scroll by on screen.
You get a prop bag, too, which you're expected to use, which includes your own personal edelweiss -- a plastic version, not the actual white flower found high in the Alpine hills -- to wave. "There will be a 'Sound of Music 101' prop-handling class," Forsley noted.
Hissing, cooing and hand gestures will also come into play based on advance analysis Forsley and Carter undertook of the film, starring Julie Andrews as Maria and Christopher Plummer as Von Trapp, along with a host of Nazis, nuns and Austrian youngsters.
"We have sat through the movie and just sort of riffed on it the whole time," she said.
Forsley hated to give away too much, but deigned to reveal moves for the opening of "Do-Re-Mi," whose melody we're about to burn into your brain for the rest of the day: "'Do,' a deer, a female deer/ 'Re,' a drop of golden sun/ 'Me,' a name I call myself..."
"'Do' is you put your hands up on your forehead like you have antlers. 'Re' we have a prop -- that's a glow stick. 'Me' is obvious," said Forsley, proceeding to clam up. "That's all I'm giving you."
Most people are familiar with the decades-long tradition of audience participation screenings of the uber-campy "Rocky Horror Picture Show." But camping up the resolutely sentimental "Sound of Music" first began, as many high-camp events do, in the gay world, according to www.filmsite.org.
An interactive, talk-back-to-the-screen showing first emerged at the 1988 London Gay and Lesbian Film festival. A highly successful London production in 2000 later leaped the pond and was reproduced in North America and Australia.
"It's the Family Channel's answer to 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show,'" Forsley observed. "The thing about it is it's sentimental and
it's campy. We live in cynical times. There are plenty of things to make fun of, but its sentimental, too. The things that make some people go 'Awwwwwww...'; will make some people go 'Pffffftt...'"
She makes a sound like a bike tire popping and going flat.
"You can really go along with the sentiment or you can really riff on it and be disrespectful -- and it's OK."
Whichever tack you take, there'll be much more to do than just watch as the familiar story screens: as flighty novice nun Maria is packed off by her exasperated convent to be governess at the gloomy, militaristic Von Trapp household, then proceeds to light up the children with song and eventually wins the Captain's heart, before they all flee over the Alps to freedom as the Nazis devour Austria.
"We've tried to give as much activity as possible, like booing certain characters and awing for certain characters," said Forsley. "There'll be plenty to keep people busy."
Reach Douglas Imbrogno at doug...@cnpapers.com or 304-348-3017
CLICK TO VIEW SLIDESHOW: See a musical slideshow of outtakes from the gazz "Sound of Music" photo shoot for this story at Magic Makers National Costume Shop in Huntington, W.Va.
RELATED STORY: 10 Fun Factoids about "The Sound of Music"
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