As the 2025 theatre season continues to wind down the next installment on the way to the holidays is Quad City Music Guild’s production of the hugely popular Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. Certainly not a holiday-themed script but is so beloved it might as well be.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I can’t imagine needing to recap the plot but, just in case, here we go. It’s pre-WWII Austria and Perky Postulate Maria is trying to become a nun but there is some concern by the sisters whether Maria really has a vocation and they send her off to be a governess of Captain Von Trapp’s seven children. Although they have run off numerous prior nanny’s the kids instantly adore Maria and her free-spirited ways of incorporating large doses of music and song into their otherwise regimented days. The Captain is not impressed with her flights of fancy but eventually comes around. Although he is planning to marry Elsa Schraeder so the kids have a mother, he falls for Maria and – worthy of a Hallmark rom-com – there’s a misunderstanding that shoos Maria back to the convent. Mother Abbess urges Maria to go back to the Von Trapp’s to be sure she’s making the right choice. Yah-dah-yah-dah-yah-dah Maria and the Captain hook up, they get married and upon returning from the honeymoon Hitler has invaded Austria and the Von Trapp’s make the decision to escape over the mountains on foot to Switzerland.
But...not before Maria gets them to sing “Do, Re, Mi,” and graduating to “The Lonely Goatherd,” “My Favorite Things,” and “The Sound of Music.”
Once again, I am floored by the vocal talent we have in the Quad Cities no better exemplified by other than Sarah Lounsberry as the spirited Maria. Not only does she sing up a storm you just fall in love with her Maria. Nathan Bates embodies the stiff captain and although he doesn’t have a musical number until way into the show his voice will bowl you over and Erin Platt as Mother Abbess belts out “Climb Every Mountain” that I think could be heard on Arsenal Island.
Actually, there isn’t a ringer in this gargantuan cast of 44 and the ensemble of sisters’ opening number of “Preludium” was Sistine Chapel worthy. As a so-called “cradle Catholic” they made my soul soar.
If musicals are one of your favorite things you’d better hurry to get tickets because, as of this review, Sunday’s performance is already sold out.
The Sound of Music continues at Quad City Music Guild in Moline’s Prospect Park, Friday and Saturday, November 21 and 22 at 7:30 p.m. If you’re new to Music Guild, be advised that parking at the theatre is limited to the handicapped and to volunteers only. All others can catch a shuttle from the Southpark Mall’s parking lot east of Dick’s Sporting Goods.
I’m Chris Hicks…break a leg.