PSST! Season Kicks Off Saturday With ‘The Sound of Music’

VALDOSTA — The 2013 Peach State Summer Theatre season will kick off Saturday, June 1, with “The Sound of Music.” The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m.

A fictionalized adaptation of Maria Augusta von Trapp’s best-selling 1949 memoir, “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers,” “The Sound of Music,” according to a Peach State Summer Theatre synopsis, tells the story of Maria Rainer, a young postulant, not considered nun material by her superiors, who is sent to act as governess to the children in the household of the strict Captain Georg von Trapp. The story is set in late 1930s Austria and includes a number of widely recognizable songs, such as “My Favorite Things” and “Do-Re-Mi.”  

Directed by Jacque Wheeler, a theatre and dance professor in the Department of Communication Arts at Valdosta State University, “The Sound of Music” features music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The show opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Nov. 16, 1959, moved to the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Nov. 6, 1962, and closed on June 15, 1963, after 1,400-plus performances; it starred Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel and won several Tony Awards. Two years later, it was adapted as a 1965 film musical starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

“The Sound of Music” was the final musical written by the dynamic duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Hammerstein died of cancer a few months following the show’s Broadway premier. 

Peach State Summer Theatre, or PSST!, is Valdosta’s premiere professional summer stock theatre. Each summer, dozens of singers, dancers, technicians, managers, and creators gather on the campus of Valdosta State University for nine weeks. During that time, they rehearse, build, and present three musicals in rotating repertory.

The 2013 Peach State Summer Theatre season marks the 24^th year of VSU producing professional theatre for the city of Valdosta, the state of Georgia, and beyond. From 1990 to 2004, VSU produced the Jekyll Island Musical Theatre Festival. In 2005, the summer theatre program was relocated to the university and renamed PSST! Then, in 2006, it was designated the Official Musical Theatre of the State of Georgia by the Georgia Legislature.

Wheeler serves as the artistic director of Peach State Summer Theatre. H. Duke Guthrie, a theatre professor at VSU, is the managing director.

The musical theatre season gains momentum with the opening of “The Marvelous Wonderettes” on Friday, June 14, and “A Little Night Music” on Friday, June 21. The three shows will be presented in rotating repertory through the weekend of July 13-14 on the Sawyer Theatre stage in VSU’s Fine Arts Building, which is located on the corner of Brookwood Drive and Oak Street.

The Peach State Summer Theatre box office is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sundays. It is located on the first floor of the VSU Fine Arts Building and can be reached by calling (229) 259-7770.

Individual show tickets are $25 plus tax for adults and $20 plus tax for all children, students, and senior citizens. Peach State Summer Theatre season memberships are available for $69.55, tax included, for adults and $62.06, tax included, for children, students, and senior citizens through June 1 only. Each season membership comes with three admissions for the member to redeem as he or she chooses.  

Visit www.valdosta.edu/psst or read “Peach State Summer Theatre Box Office Is Open For Business” at http://www.valdosta.edu/about/news/releases/2013/05/peach-state-summer-theatre-box-office-is-open-for-business---.php for more information.

Visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/valdostastate/sets/72157633809864963/ to view more photos.

Note: “The Sound of Music” is rated G.

Performance Schedule

• 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 1

• 3 p.m. Sunday, June 2

• 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 8

• 3 p.m. Sunday, June 9 (Pay What You Can performance)

• 3 p.m. Sunday, June 16

• 2 p.m. Saturday, June 22

• 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 26 (American Sign Language interpreted performance)

• 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 29

• 2 p.m. Thursday, July 4

• 2 p.m. Saturday, July 6

• 2 p.m. Wednesday, July 10

• 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 12

• 3 p.m. Sunday, July 14