What follows is an article regarding the Broadway star Rebecca Luker. Some of you will be well aware of the Sound of Music, a lot of people consider it to be one of their favorite films. It certainly is the kind of film that you can watch time and time again, over the holiday season, on a Sunday afternoon or at night if you are staying in one of the Britannia hotel rooms or an airport hotel before going on a business trip. It's fun, a touching story and has some amazing songs. Surely this is part of the reason why Rebecca committed to having a part in it. We find out more...
Tulsa World
July 6, 1999
The hills are alive...
Broadway stars take to Tulsa stage for `Sound of Music'
By JAMES D. WATTS Jr.
Credit: David Crenshaw/Tulsa World *Before she starred as Maria in the recent Broadway revival of "The Sound of Music," Rebecca Luker had an opportunity to meet with the most famous Maria of all, Julie Andrews.
What Luker came away with from than meeting was a variation on Duke Ellington's famous dictum: Since it doesn't mean a thing, it helps if you've got something to swing.
"We really didn't talk about the role that much, but at one point we got to talking about the song `I Have Confidence,' " Luker recalled. "She said she thought that the lyrics were just so silly -- `I have confidence in sunshine, I have confidence in rain,' -- that she had to do something to distract people's attention from the words. So that's why she's swinging her arms so much in that scene.
"To be honest, though," Luker said, "I'm glad that was all we talked about, because it had taken me so long to get Julie Andrews' voice out of my head -- her performance is in our pores, everybody knows it so well. But in the end, I managed to get past all that history. This Maria is definitely my Maria, someone very different from Julie Andrews' character or Mary Martin's."
Luker spent a year in "The Sound of Music," the first time the musical had been presented on Broadway since it originally was produced in 1959.Her efforts to make the character of Maria, the novice nun who becomes first governess, then mother to the family of Captain von Trapp, her own were successful enough to earn an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination and a wealth of glowing reviews from the New York Times, Newsweek (which called her performance "irresistible") and the Hartford Courant, which went so far as to say Luker "far surpasses Mary Martin and perhaps even Julie Andrews."
Luker left the Broadway production in March of this year, but she hasn't left the role of Maria behind. She is in Tulsa to star in the production of "The Sound of Music" that Theater Arts Children's Theater is offering as its annual summer musical.
Credit: David Crenshaw/Tulsa World *The production reunites Luker with Michael DeVries, who will portray Captain von Trapp. The two first worked together in 1991, in the Broadway production of "The Secret Garden" (which, coincidentally, TACT presented as its very first musical in 1994).
"Getting the chance to work with Rebecca again was the main reason I wanted to do this," said DeVries, whose career has included Broadway stints in "Cats," "Grand Hotel" and "Hello, Dolly!" with Carol Channing.
"But also, it's a chance to renew my acquaintance with this show," he said. "I've never been the Captain before, but I did play Rolf these many years ago, when I really was `17 going on 18.' "
The rest of the cast is made up of local actors, including Jackie Reichman as the Mother Abbess, Cindy Baker as Elsa Schraeder, Rick Hildebrant as Max Detweiler Ben Thompson as Rolf and Leah Rohrer as Liesl.
Jo Jo Nichols is directing the production, which makes use of the sets created for the Broadway touring production that played in Tulsa in 1997.
TACT's production have grown increasingly lavish through the years, beginning with its 1996 staging of "Peter Pan" that made use of Broadway touring production sets and aerial effects from Flying by Foy. Last year's production of "The Wizard of Oz" was an extravaganza of special effects -- fireball-flinging witches and tornadic storms, explosive transformations spark-spitting ruby slippers.
Luker, a native of Alabama, headed for New York City and a life in the theater soon after graduating college. Her first role on Broadway was in "The Phantom of the Opera," first as an ensemble member, then as understudy, then the female lead of Christine. Her subsequent Broadway roles in "Showboat" and "The Secret Garden," earned her nominations for Tony and Drama Desk awards, respectively, and her performances in concert versions of shows like "The Boys From Syracuse" brought her to the attention of the producers wanting to bring "The Sound of Music" back to Broadway.
"Actually, they wanted another actress for the role, but she got another part," Luker recalled. "I always thought that Maria would be a role I would do, I just didn't think I would wait this long to do it. But then I learned that Julie Andrews was in her 20s when she did the movie, and Mary Martin was in her 40s when she originated the role. Since I'm somewhere in the middle, I figured I was all right."
Still, it took almost a year of auditions and callbacks for Luker to secure the role. At times, the producers thought it would be better to land an established name for the role, the way New York City Opera got Debby Boone for its production, and another recent touring production featured Marie Osmond.
In the end, musical talent won out over star power.
"The way I see Maria is that she's this delightfully flawed person," Luker said. "She does everything out of love, whether for her faith or for her people, and she does everything full out, which means she's totally not cut out to be a nun. That gives me a lot of opportunity to be zany or over-the-top.
"It's a great part, but for it to be really great you have to have a Captain that you trust, to show that these two people immediately realize how much they are alike. When I heard that Michael would be playing the Captain, I knew it would work."
DeVries started out wanting to sing opera. "Then I got my first opera job and hated it," he said, laughing. "The arias I liked -- it was all those recitatives that I couldn't stand. So I gave it up to become a lawyer. Nowadays, I'm not a lawyer but I've played a couple on TV (in episodes of NBC's "Law & Order")."
DeVries's flirtation with the legal profession made him decide that the theater was the place to be. He began concentrating on musical theater roles, but in recent years he has moving more into straight acting parts.
"I've spent most of my career doing these young, male ingenue roles," DeVries said. "One of the benefits about aging is that this whole new world of leading man parts has suddenly opened up for me."
One such role is that of Captain von Trapp.
"It's one of those deceptively challenging roles," DeVries said. "The character goes through this great emotional arc, from a rather cold and distant man to loving husband and father, but it has to be done subtly, because he's a very undemonstrative person."
Theater "The Sound of Music," by Rodgers and Hammerstein, presented by Theater Arts Children's Theater When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 13-16; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and July 17; 2 p.m. July 11 and 18 Where: Performing Arts Center for Education, 10300 E. 81st St. (Tulsa Community College Southeast campus) Tickets: $10-$30 adults, $10-$25 children, available at the PACE ticket office, or by calling 595-7777James D. Watts, World entertainment writer, can be reached at 581-8478 or via e-mail at james.watts@tulsaworld.com.
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Copyright © 1999, World Publishing Co. All rights reserved
