Maria

Maria von Trapp. You know the name and the iconic songs,but do you know her real story? This dramatic novelbased on the woman glamorized in The Sound of Musicbrings Maria to life as never before. ΓÇ£As immersiveheartbreakingand ultimately redemptive as the musical . . . This one is not to be missed.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöAllison Patakiauthor of Finding Margaret Fuller In the 1950sOscar Hammerstein is asked to write the lyrics to a musical based on the life of a woman named Maria von Trapp. HeΓÇÖs intrigued to learn that she was once a novice who hoped to live quietly as an Austrian nun before her abbey sent her away to teach a widowed baronΓÇÖs sickly child. What should have been a ten-month assignmenthoweverunexpectedly turned into a marriage proposal. And when the family was forced to flee their home to escape the Nazisit was Maria who instructed them on how to survive using nothing but the power of their voices. ItΓÇÖs an inspirational storyto be sureand as half of the famous Rodgers & Hammerstein duoHammerstein knows it has big Broadway potential. Yet much of MariaΓÇÖs life will have to be reinvented for the stageand with the horrors of war still fresh in peopleΓÇÖs mindsHammerstein canΓÇÖt let audiences see just how close the von Trapps came to losing their lives. But when Maria sees the script that is supposedly based on her lifeshe becomes so incensed that she sets off to confront Hammerstein in person. Told that heΓÇÖs busyshe is asked to express her concerns to his secretaryFraninstead. The pair strike up an unlikely friendship as Maria tells Fran about her lifecontradicting much of what will eventually appear in The Sound of Music. A tale of lovelossand the difficult choices that we are often forced to makeMaria is a powerful reminder that the truth is usually more complicatedΓÇöand certainly more compellingΓÇöthan the stories immortalized by Hollywood.