‘Sound of Music’ singalong changes tune

AUBURN – Fans hoping to sing along with the “Sound of Music” discovered that the practice, which is becoming popular across the country, is not one of the copyright lawyer’s “favorite things.”

Once pitched as a singalong, a Tuesday rehearsal for a local production of the “Sound of Music” became more of a humalong because organizers were advised that printed songbooks could not be distributed to the audience.

People mumbled with the nuns. They droned with the alto. And they “do-do-do’d” with the opening number, sung in Latin.

Even without printed songbooks, the audience remembered enough of the words from 1965 movie musical starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer to occasionally overpower the performers onstage.

“Sound of Music” singalongs swept the country after a London theater producer hatched the idea in the summer of 1999 to show the movie musical with subtitled lyrics for those who don’t know the words by heart.

The idea caught on and the rest was history.

In Auburn, the Community Little Theatre wanted to capture the fun and excitement of those singalongs that often feature audience members arriving dressed as nuns and other characters from the movie.

About one week before the show, however, leaders learned that the singalong was prohibited. People representing the heirs of Rodgers and Hammerstein, who wrote the musical’s songs, said the theater group would violate its purchased rights to the show if a sing-along was held.

They were told that they couldn’t hand out lyrics, or allow the director to conduct the audience in the memorable songs, which include “My Favorite Things” and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.”

Phone messages at the theater were changed to describe the performance as a dress rehearsal instead of singalong rehearsal.

Moments before the show, Linda Britt, president of the theater, apologized to the 100 or so people in the audience.

Despite the change of plans, some members of the audience took matters into their owns hands, or lungs. In other words, the audience section of the theater was alive with the sound of music.

At moments, the audience sang louder than the performers onstage, who were unaccompanied by the usual orchestra.

When lead Caroline Musica sang “The Lonely Goatherd,” her voice disappeared. When ingenue Bethany Ray Saindon sang her solo, “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” several baritones in the audience could be heard, too.

“My sense is that people had fun,” said Britt, whose idea it was to hold a singalong in Auburn. “We had a good time.”