‘Sound of Music’ opens Feb. 3 at St. Viator
After 45 years, St. Viator High School’s theater department knows what it takes to mount a successful musical: lots of energy and talent, as well as attention to detail in providing the setting.
Look for plenty of both in “The Sound of Music,” which opens at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3 in the school’s Jeuck Auditorium at 1213 E. Oakton St., Arlington Heights.
Nearly 200 students are involved in the show, making it the single largest co-curricular activity at the school, with 160 cast members divided into alternate casts, 20 students in the orchestra pit and another 20 providing technical support.
Audience members will find themselves immersed in a pre-World War II Austria right from the first note, when the Sisters in the Nonnberg Abbey sing their morning vespers in Latin.
Later, they will feel the mounting pressure by the threatening Nazi officers, wearing costumes sewn from authentic fabric used by the Third Reich that was confiscated by the Allies in 1945.
Seniors Sarah Castaldi of Prospect Heights and Molly McMahon of Arlington Heights share the role of Maria, the free-spirited postulant who leaves the security of the abbey to fill in as a governess for a widower and his seven children.
“She’s so much fun to play, because she can be goofy and animated, even if she’s supposed to be conservative and reverent,” says Castaldi, who has appeared in the musical every year. “I’ve dreamed of playing her ever since I was a little girl.”
McMahon makes her second appearance in a St. Viator musical after appearing as Golde in last year’s “Fiddler on the Roof.” Formerly immersed in golf, basketball and soccer, McMahon went on to win the school’s spring 2011 variety show singing “My Immortal,” by Evanescence.
She plays opposite another athlete, Jack Kellner of Elk Grove Village, who shares the part of Capt. Georg von Trapp with senior Danny Wolfe of Arlington Heights, who began his musical career as a freshman, playing the part of Baby John, in “West Side Story.”
Kellner was an all-conference linebacker for the Lions, but he found his voice last year in “Fiddler.” This year, he tries to harness the emotions of the captain, who falls in love with the young governess, all while holding off a Nazi officer’s commission.
“I think audiences will find the play somewhat different from the movie,” Kellner says. “I sing the song, ‘No Way to Stop It,’ about the Nazi movement to annex Austria. It propels him to break off his engagement with the Baroness and marry Maria instead.”
If you go
What: The Sound of Music
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3, 4, 10 and 11; 1 p.m. Feb. 5 and 12
Where: St. Viator High School, 1213 E. Oakton St., Arlington Heights, in the Jeuck Auditorium
Cost: $10. saintviator.com; box office, (847) 392-4050, ext. 349; or email ticket orders to boxoffice@saintviator.com