The Sound of Music-Plot

It is 1938.  Maria is a postulate at an Austrian convent.  The others don't know what to do with her, since she keeps going off to sing in the mountains and stuff like that ("The Sound of Music", "Maria"), so they ship her off to be a nanny for the von Trapp children, whose father is a widower and a World War I naval hero ("I Have Confidence").  Once she gets there, she brings joy into the lives of the children, whose father is more of a drill seargeant than a father, by teaching them to sing ("Do-Re-Mi", "My Favorite Things", "The Lonely Goatherd").  Meanwhile, the oldest of the children, Liesl, is developing a romance with the mailboy Rolf ("Sixteen Going On Seventeen"), and Captain von Trapp is romancing a rich lady named Else, though the relationship is somewhat rocky ("How Can Love Survive?").   The captain holds a huge party at which the children sing for the guests ("So Long, Farewell"), and when he dances with Maria they begin to fall in love (though the entire audience expects it by this point).  Maria gets scared and goes back to the convent, where the abbess talks her into going back and admitting her love for the captain ("Climb Ev'ry Mountain").  She heads back, the captain breaks his engagment, and they get married.  ("Something Good"/"An Ordinary Couple")  When they return from the honeymoon, Captain von Trapp finds orders from the Nazi military recalling him to active submarine service, which he refuses on principle ("No Way to Stop It").  They also find that friend and ever-pragmatic Nazi collaborator Max Detweiler has entered the children in the famous Salzburg Music Festival.  The family performs ("Edelweiss") and then slips out one by one during an encore of "So Long, Farewell", hiding in the abby garden.  A Nazi search party contains Rolf, who finds but does not report them.  After the search party leaves, the family heads over the mountains to Switzerland amid singing nuns and lives happily ever after ("Climb Ev'ry Mountain" reprise).  Note : possible inspiration for plotline of the TV show The Nanny?

back to The Sound of Music

main / shakespeare / people / movies / books / random / jokes / star trek
x-files / writing / quotes / poetry / tv shows