This summer you can travel to Rosebud and enjoy a family-friendly and thoroughly entertaining production of the Rogers and Hammerstein much beloved musical The Sound of Music. The story is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers and contains many popular songs including “Do-Re-Mi”, “My Favorite Things”, “Sixteen Going on Seventeen”, “Edelweiss”, “Climb Every Mountain”, “So Long, Farewell”, and the title song, “The Sound of Music”.

The original Broadway production won five Tony Awards including Best Musical and the play was adapted into the 1965 film starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and went on to win five Academy Awards including Best Picture.

The story is set in 1938 Austria in the dark days leading up to the start of World War II and shortly before Germany annexed The Federal State of Austria into the German Reich. Against this backdrop we meet Maria who has taken a job as governess to the seven von Trapp children while she decides whether or not to become a nun.

Maria soon finds herself bonding with the children and eventually falling in love with their widowed father Captain von Trapp. Once Germany marches into Austria the Captain is ordered to report to the German navy but because of his opposition to the Nazis he and Maria devise a plan to flee Austria with the children.

In the Rosebud Theatre production, Cassia Schmidt as Maria and Ian Farthing as Captain von Trapp lead a talented cast that captures the joyful spirit of the show in a terrific production that will have you humming along to all your favourite tunes.

JAMES HUTCHISON

The Sound of Music was a huge hit when it came out and it has remained a much beloved musical and I was wondering what you think are the qualities that make it so popular.

CASSIA SCHMIDT

It’s a love story. Two love stories actually. It’s a story about someone that doesn’t belong, which is always good fun for a musical. And she finds a place where she belongs. And then the story is set in World War II which is such a dramatic time in our history, and it’s based on a true story. And I think at the heart of it we love Maria, and we’re rooting for her, and we want this family to win. At the core, I think we want people to find each other and find a place where they belong.

JAMES

You say we want people to find each other and in the story, Maria falls in love with the Captain and he her. Why do you think they fall in love?

CASSIA

I think it’s the same reason anyone falls in love. It just works for them for some reason. They shouldn’t fall in love because they’re from different classes and there’s an age difference between them and they’ve lived completely different lives. But for them, it just worked. There’s a kind of magic to falling in love. And it’s so personal, too, right? This is the big question, James. How do people fall in love?

JAMES

I read in an interview you gave to Louis Hobson in the Herald that there are parallels between your own story and Maria’s story. Maria is uncertain about whether or not she should devote her life to God or follow a different path. And you said you’d had a similar struggle. What was that journey like for you and how did you go about choosing a life of music and family and performance?

CASSIA

My biggest kind of discerning time was in my teenage years. I really felt a call and I was really attracted to the cloister. It’s a really romantic kind of idea to be contemplative and to be in community and to be separate from the world and married to God. But all these orders that I looked at never quite felt like the right place for me and I never quite got as far down the road as Maria does as actually entering a convent. I have stayed in some convents through travel and through friends and I loved staying with the sisters and there’s just something magic about a holy place. And I was really attracted to that.

And then I just thought I don’t think that’s quite where I’m called so where do I go now? And that’s when I ended up coming to Rosebud. I came here as a student. I did the program here. And the first mainstage show I did was Man of La Mancha. And we did something like ninety shows that summer. Ninety performances. And I remember about twenty shows in thinking this is awesome. If we close tomorrow, I would feel like I had a good experience. And then in my next thought, I realized that there are seventy more shows and I felt this calling because I realized this show isn’t about me it’s about what I get to offer to each new audience that comes to see it whether I feel like it or not on that particular day.

And I think there’s something about the self-sacrifice that the theatre asks for, as well as we’re in community together doing this show hoping to change hearts and hoping to inspire people. And, you know, a theatre does feel like a holy place a lot of the time. So, it was coming here that really affirmed for me that the theatre is the church I’m called to. And then I found someone that I love, and we have a family, and it didn’t feel like a big “Aha!” decision. Instead, it felt like I pieced it together and I followed a thread until it became so clear that this is where I belong.

JAMES

The play has several young performers playing the von Trapp children, and so it provides an opportunity to pass on musical knowledge and mentor up-and-coming theatre artists. In what ways do you think mentorship is important for helping young people navigate their own professional development and life’s journey?

CASSIA

I’ve benefited from it. It’s such an integral part of what we do here in Rosebud. We call our training the Mentorship Program. So, we really believe in it. It’s like the good old 4-H club I was in when I was a kid. The 4-H model is – learn to do by doing.

You can go to a lot of classes, and you can read a lot about how to be an actor but standing on stage with an audience who will never lie to you because the audience is very clear about what they like and what they don’t like is indispensable. And you have a group of actors to support you and to be with you. And I think theatre can offer you a sense that you have value, and it builds confidence and it builds a sense of body and voice. And you don’t have to be the Gretel from the movie, you yourself are the perfect Gretel, and you yourself have so much to offer.

JAMES

Tell me what audiences can look forward to experiencing when they see the show.

CASSIA

I think this show is so beautifully cast and everybody is so well suited to their role. And what I’ve been seeing from our audience is a nostalgia in a way that no other show I’ve done before has had. I’ve done Anne of Green Gables – I’ve done Oliver! – and I’ve done some other musicals where people know them pretty well. But because The Sound of Music movie is so embedded in our culture people know this story and they remember watching it with their grandmother and they love this story in a way that’s physical and whatever their connection is to the story we can feel it in the show.

From the very first performance, we felt it as soon as we started the music because some people sing a little bit, or they repeat a line, and you hear them sighing or crying or laughing. And I was like, “Wow, people love this show.” And isn’t that wonderful that they get to come to see a show that they love and I’m happy to share it with them because I love the story too. It’s part of my childhood.

JAMES

I know you also produce original music with your most recent release called The Lullaby Project: Songs for the Sleep Deprived. Tell me a little bit about that project and how that came about.

CASSIA

It was my COVID project. I actually just wanted to do a writing project around parenthood and lullabies and to collaborate with people. And I’m a mom. We have three kids. We have a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a four-month-old. And before I was a mom, I always thought what a romantic idea to rock your kids to sleep but instead it’s often frustrating and you’re tired and it’s not working. And so that’s why I call it songs for the sleep deprived. It’s more about songs for parents rather than songs that might put your baby to sleep.

And my favourite song I co-wrote with Lauren Hamm and Paul Zacharias we called “Time Go Easy”. We sat together and just talked about being parents and how there’s a saying that being a parent is saying goodbye to a child over and over again because the baby is gone now. You’ll never see that baby again, but now you’re saying hello to a toddler. And then you’ll never see that toddler again because now there’s this child, and now all of a sudden there’s this teenager, and then there’s this adult before me, right? So, we all had a good cry, and then we went off and we wrote this song that’s our pride and joy from the album.

JAMES

What do you think it is about music that makes it such an important part of people’s lives?

CASSIA

I think it’s something Morris Ertman our director said at the end of rehearsals about the show. “This show is about music changing people’s hearts and wouldn’t that be amazing if that’s what we get to do all summer for audiences.” It’s like a softening of the heart and I think it’s a physical experience for us. Music has rhythm – like our heartbeat. Like our mom’s heartbeat. Like our family’s heartbeat. And I think when we’re listening to music, we’re part of the music. There’s something physical about it that goes into our spine and into our memory and into our feelings in a way that nothing else really can. So, just like falling in love – it’s magic. (Laughs) Everything’s magic.

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Catch The Sound of Music at Rosebud Theatre until September 2nd. Tickets are available through the Rosebud Theatre Website or by calling the Box Office at 1-800-267-7553.

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