With music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, The Sound of Music is almost everyone’s favorite musical.

     It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria Augusta Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Set in Austria on the eve of the Anschluss in 1938, the musical tells the story of Maria, who takes a job as governess to a seven motherless children while she decides whether or not to become a nun.

     She transforms the von Trapp family home from a place of rules and regulations to one filled with joy, laughter and music. She falls in love with the children, and eventually their widowed father, Captain von Trapp. But, after their marriage, he is ordered to accept a commission in the German navy, but he opposes the Nazis. He and Maria decide on a plan to flee Austria with the children.

     Many songs from the musical have become standards, such as “Edelweiss”, “My Favorite Things”, “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”, “Do-Re-Mi”, and the title song “The Sound of Music”.