NEWS RELEASE:
HALLS ARE ALIVE WITH `SOUND OF MUSIC'
Author(s): Cara Feinberg, Globe correspondent Date: November 21, 2002 Page: 1 Section: Globe NorthWest

Two "nuns" standing in the concessions line in the lobby of the Regent Theatre were comparing wimples and scouting out men in lederhosen. So far, they had seen only one - a man whose traditional Austrian outfit was fashioned from a pair of knee-high tube socks, black Bermuda shorts, and clip-on suspenders with a handmade cloth crossbar taped to his chest. His 6-year-old daughter, a miniature Liesl in a flowing pink party dress, was pulling him mercilessly toward the ticket takers, brushing by a Captain von Trapp, some bearded frauleins, and a woman who was having trouble seeing through the paper snowflakes she had taped to her nose and eyelashes. "I can't believe how many people have turned up - and dressed up," said a beaming Gary Adelson, the owner of the Regent Theatre, this year's Boston-area stop for the "Sing-A-Long Sound of Music." Though he himself was not in costume, he nonetheless granted pious nods to incoming Mother Superiors and Nazi generals alike.

The show, which played a four-run engagement at the Regent last weekend, nearly filled the 500-seat theater for each performance, drawing enthusiastic crowds of all ages for the matinees and evening shows. Though the show has toured the Boston area before - it appeared two years ago at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline - this was its first appearance at the newly reopened Regent, and the run was so successful, Adelson and his staff have decided to bring the film back Dec. 26-31.

Since its debut in the United Kingdom in 1999, the smash hit has swept through packed moviehouses all over the world. Audiences are encouraged to show up in costume, sing along to the movie's lyrics (which are shown at the bottom of the movie screen), and heckle the characters as they climb every mountain.

And heckle they do.

At the Regent's Saturday evening show, Julie Andrews receives cheers and whistles when she first appears on screen, yet a close-up shot of the Mother Superior in her habit prompts anonymous taunts of "Take it off!" and "She's got no hair!"

Rolf, the bicycling telegram boy, is greeted with dog barks and disapproving "tsks," and when Captain von Trapp asks Maria what that "curious singing" is, someone shouts, "It's the theme music, stupid!"

"I grew up listening to the Broadway version of this musical," said audience member Charlotte Perrine of Newton, whose costume "Sixteen-Going-On-Seventeen" required her to carry her sister-in-law, Anne Roche, on her back. "You always wish you could blurt all these things out, and now, with this show, you finally can," she said.

Mikaela Loukas, 9, and her sister Brittani, 12, agreed. "It's fun to see grown-ups having fun," said Mikaela, who was seeing the film for the first time.

"This is a neat show," added Brittani. Both girls giggled uncontrollably, admitting that they thought all the adults there were probably crazy.

Though audiences have been enjoying this film since its original release in 1964, the sing-along phenomenon is relatively recent. "People have been attending cult films like `The Rocky Horror Picture Show' for decades," said North American Sing-A-Long producer Tom Lightburn, in a telephone interview from Sing-A-Long Productions headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, "but the whole Hollywood musical sing-along began four years ago in the north of Scotland.

"One of the therapists at the [old people's] home would rent Hollywood musicals once a week for group therapy and hand out song sheets to get people involved. One day, a man who worked for the London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival came to observe her patients while they were all singing along to `Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.' He was so intrigued with the idea, he brought it to the Prince Charles Cinema in London's West End, where `The Sound of Music Sing-A-Long' became an immediate hit. It's been running there for four years straight, every Friday night and Sunday afternoon."

After Lightburn saw the British phenomenon, he knew he wanted to bring it to North America. "The show transcends age, gender, sexuality, and culture. You can't really go wrong with it," he said. After a nearly eight-month-long process of obtaining the official rights to the film from Twentieth Century Fox, the film's original distributor, Sing-A-Long Productions, released the show in North America and has never looked back. "The show appeals to so many people and brings out the best of their creativity," Lightburn said. "People just love this."

Now, nearly four years later, Sing-A-Long has evolved significantly since its London debut. Whereas the earliest versions showed an old print of the 1964 film with the subtitles digitally projected over the screen, the current show boasts brand-new prints with subtitles burned onto the celluloid. Audience members are now also treated to "magic moments" fun packs - goody bags filled with props to use at designated points in the movie.

"Because the show is hard to explain on a poster, each screening begins with a half-hour introduction," explained Mary Beth Cahill, who served as MC at the Regent's Sing-A-Long production this past weekend. Cahill, best known locally as the founder of the "punk-mambo" band Babaloo, and the charismatic host of "Maryoke" Karaoke night at the Milky Way in Jamaica Plain, began the Regent's show with a warm welcome to the audience and a systematic orientation to the props they'd find in their fun packs.

Among other things, audience members were treated to a sprig of plastic edelweiss, a small "champagne-popper" firecracker to pull when the Captain kisses Maria ("No one likes an early popper," Cahill reminded the audience), and a swatch of floral fabric to match the dowdy curtains in Maria's room.

"I was hoping for a Flibbertygibbet or a will-o-the-wisp," Laura Isenberg of Newton said to her husband after rifling through her fun pack and finding neither. The couple, who later took third place in the costume contest for their matching gray sweatshirts - his with the words "Someone Older and Wiser" (from the song "Sixteen-Going-On-Seventeen") scrawled in magic marker on the front, hers with the message, "I need Someone Older and Wiser" - proudly represented the more seasoned sector of the audience.

"It's wonderful to see so many generations here together," said Paul Lewis, who by day is the chairman of the English department at Boston College. That night he and his wife were wearing a matching set of "brown paper packages tied up with string" piled atop their heads like pyramids. "We've had a lot of fun tonight - though I won't cop to it at work on Monday morning."

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