NBC To Air ‘Sound Of Music’ Live Show Dec. 5

A three-hour live staging of the The Sound Of Music will premiere on NBC on Thursday, December 5, the network announced during its upfront presentation today. The project is executive produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, with Carrie Underwood cast as the lead Maria. NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt noted that such big family-oriented productions are rarely mounted these days, “but we are doing it anyway.” Based on the original Broadway musical, The Sound Of Music is set in pre-WWII Austria and  based on the romantic true story of Maria von Trapp (Underwood), an aspiring nun who leaves the abbey to become a governess for the widower Captain von Trapp’s seven children and finds herself falling in love with her employer and questioning her religious calling. It premiered on Broadway in 1959, where it broke box office records and won the Tony for Best Musical. The Sound Of Music features a libretto by Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse and a score by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) that includes “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Edelweiss,” and “So Long, Farewell.”