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How do you cut 9 women like Maria? TheStar.com - entertainment - How do you cut 9 women like Maria?

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Andrew Lloyd Webber toasts the 10 finalists on the reality show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Meet the final 10 candidates to play the lead in the Mirvish production. Then pick the one you'd keep

June 16, 2008

Richard Ouzounian
Theatre Critic

And then there were 10.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, the CBC program dedicated to helping find someone to play the lead in the Mirvish production of The Sound of Music this fall, cut to the chase on the June 16 broadcast.

After an audition on the stage of London's Paladium Theatre, the 20 surviving candidates were told their fate by Andrew Lloyd Webber himself, who later joined the 10 winners in raising a glass of champagne to their futures. From now on, those futures are in the hands of the Canadian public, who will vote over the next six weeks for their favourite Maria, before she is finally selected on July 25.

If you'd like to meet them in person, the 10 lucky ladies will be in the CBC Atrium, 250 Front St. W., June 17 at noon.

There will also be 900 free pieces of strudel, courtesy of the Salzburg Tourist Bureau, and 100 "Maria" aprons for the first 100 people to buy tickets at the Mirvish booth set up in the atrium.

JAYME ARMSTRONG, 24, Richmond, B.C.: A veteran of the Stratford Festival, Armstrong admits to having watched the movie The Sound of Music almost daily as a child. "But I was still afraid of auditioning," she admits, "because of the whole reality show factor. Now I'm so glad I did!"

TAMARA FIFIELD, 21, St. John's, Nfld.: Her basic training was as an opera singer, but "I auditioned all on a whim," she reveals. "Why? Because I sat down one day to watch Cats on video and I cried all the way through because I realized how much I missed the theatre."

ALLIE HUGHES, 22, Toronto: A graduate of Sheridan's music theatre program and a lifelong Toronto booster, Hughes first saw The Sound of Music in Grade 6 and loved it ever since. "I've gotten really close to the other nine girls and really appreciate their talent. I also love the way they've accepted me and my quirky personality."

ALISON JUTZI, 29, Guelph, Ont.: An honours BA grad in drama from the U of T, Jutzi is an avid guitar player, just like Maria. "I think the hardest moment so far was when the first 10 girls were cut from Maria school," she says. "That's when I realized only one of us could win."

KATIE KERR, 19, Windsor, Ont.: Still a vocal student at the U of Windsor, Kerr has played Brigitta and Liesel in amateur Sound of Music productions, but "when I found out I was one of the final 10 Marias, I felt like someone had shone a beam of light down on me from above."

DONNA LAJEUNESSE, 22, Bowmanville, Ont.: As a child, Lajeunesse recalls watching The Sound of Music so much that she literally wore the tape out. "I didn't think I was taking it very seriously," she confesses, "until they told me I was a maybe. Then I realized how much I really wanted to be Maria."

ELICIA MACKENZIE, 23, Vancouver, B.C.: When she was 7, Mackenzie's mother rented The Sound of Music. By the end of a week, she knew the words to every song. "I haven't really been nervous about it so far. My feeling is that if it's meant to happen, then it will happen."

MARISA MCINTYRE, 25, Waterloo, Ont.: She's played Sophie in Mamma Mia! and Amaryllis in the 1996 production of The Music Man at Stratford, but her sights are now set on Maria. "I really think I'm right for this part. I've got the spunk and the spirit and I just love to sing!"

JANNA POLZIN, 24, Woodstock, Ont.: Another Sheridan grad, Polzin used to re-enact scenes from The Sound of Music every day with her sister when they were kids. "I do see myself as Maria," she insists. "I share her love of teaching and her fondness for children."

KYLA TINGLEY, 24, Dartmouth, N.S.: Hooked on musicals ever since she saw The Phantom of the Opera at age 7, Tingley admits, "I was flabbergasted when I found out I was in the final 10, but then I decided to just try and relax and enjoy every minute of it."

A feature on the "Marias in Salzburg" will appear in the Star on Sunday.

How Webber solved Maria problem TheStar.com - entertainment - How Webber solved Maria problem

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Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and M. Perpetua Hilgenberg OSB, the mother abbess of Nonnberg Abbey, where the real Maria Von Trapp trained to be a nun.

Composer's love affair with classic musical began with letter he wrote when he was 13

June 11, 2008

Richard Ouzounian
theatre critic

SALZBURG, Austria-When the CBC TV series How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? has its first broadcast on Sunday at 8 p.m. and the search for a leading lady for this fall's Toronto theatre production of The Sound of Music moves into its final stage, think of this.

None of it would be happening if a 13-year-old boy hadn't written a fan letter 47 years ago. Of course, it wasn't just any boy, and it wasn't just any fan letter. The precocious adolescent was Andrew Lloyd Webber and the man he wrote to was composer Richard Rodgers.

The story behind that will come up soon enough, but the crowd standing outside Nonnberg Abbey this hot, hazy afternoon are all paying attention to the aristocratic-looking figure striding up the cobblestone path. He just stepped off his private jet for a rigorously scheduled six-hour stop in Salzburg, where the musical is set, to film some segments for the TV series before flying off on holiday to Majorca, and every minute has to be accounted for.

After all, he is the Baron Lloyd-Webber of Sydmonton in the County of Hampshire.

He's also the most successful composer of musical theatre in the 20th century, but today not a word of that is up for discussion.

Not a whisper of Cats, not a sound of Sunset Boulevard, not a peep of Phantom of the Opera.

As he looks down at the city of Salzburg far below, his mind is back in the past. "I wrote Richard Rodgers a fan letter," he recalls, with a slight smile of embarrassment acknowledging the cheekiness of his act. "And I told him how much his music meant to me. He wrote me back and invited me to see a rehearsal of The Sound of Music, which was about to open in London."

For the first time, the cheerful brow furrows.

"But what I saw on the stage seemed to be fighting against the music and lyrics. I believe it has never been produced onstage as Rodgers and Hammerstein intended."

One of the major things he's referring to has been the tradition of casting older female stars as Maria von Trapp. "I mean, Mary Martin was almost 50 when she played it," he says, eyes wide with disbelief.

"That's not the kind of girl who `climbs a tree and scrapes her knee,'" he mocks, quoting one of the show's lyrics.

So when Lloyd Webber decided to produce a revival of the show, based on true events, several years ago in London, he knew the first thing he wanted was a younger Maria.

"It's an open secret," he admits a bit sheepishly, "that I talked to Scarlett Johansson about the role, but she couldn't do it."

But that proved to be a blessing in disguise, because Lloyd Webber began thinking that perhaps he should proceed even more boldly.

"What if someone came into the household who was only a bit older than the oldest child? Someone who was even rougher around the edges than they were?"

From that came his decision to look for a Maria outside of the conventional casting worlds and let the public make the final choice.

That show, also called How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, was a huge ratings success for the BBC in the summer of 2006. The audience's final choice, Connie Fisher, is now a star in England. She received rapturous reviews when the musical opened in the West End.

Lloyd Webber is hoping lightning will strike twice with the Canadian version, as are the CBC, which is producing the TV program, and David Mirvish, who is presenting the stage version in Toronto.

On the British edition of the series, they only took the three last candidates to Salzburg, but this time Lloyd Webber and company decided it should be the 10 finalists.

"It's a really good thing to bring them to Salzburg," he affirms. "To see this place has to be an inspiring thing."

He walks into the abbey where the 10 aspiring Marias are waiting, as is the current mother abbess, M. Perpetua Hilgenberg OSB.

She's a wonderfully bright-eyed, no-nonsense woman who can say that she's heard over the years that most of her fellow novitiates "didn't really like" the original Maria von Trapp because "she was very hard."

Then in the next breath, she'll whip a digital camera from the depths of her habit and shyly ask to have someone take her photograph with Lloyd Webber.

The clock ticks rapidly as we move on to the beautifully rococo Leopoldskron Palace, where the Captain proposes to Maria in the film.

Here, Lloyd Webber grills the girls about their experience singing the title song out in the mountains, which they had done that morning.

"Did you love the echo? It's unique. An echo you hear just once, a split second later. The first time I experienced that I truly understood the lyric. Yes, `the hills are alive with the sound of music.'"

More advice, more filming and then Lloyd Webber heads off to Majorca.

"You know the big joke about the film as far as the Austrians are concerned?" he says, speaking of departures. "The mountain the von Trapps climb over actually leads to Germany."

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.