Acclaimed actress and singer Audra McDonald has won five Tony Awards and two Grammys, but for her co-starring role as Mother Abbess in tonight’s live NBC broadcast of “The Sound of Music,” she’s having to fend off some critics before the show airs. Even the hosts of the the ESPN sports talk show “Mike and Mike” were weighing in this morning. “They don’t rewrite books!” host Mike Greenberg fumed, arguing that the new production shouldn’t be performed.
McDonald, a two-time Grammy winner who has starred in such TV shows as “Private Practice” and Broadway shows like ”A Raisin in the Sun,” called Speakeasy from the the Long Island set of “The Sound of Music” to discuss the show, which stars Carrie Underwood as Maria.
The Wall Street Journal: Should you even be talking to me? Shouldn’t you be conserving your voice?
Audra McDonald: Well yes, yes I should. But I’m talking to you anyway.
How did you first get involved with “The Sound of Music”?
They came to me. I have a relationship with [executive producers] Neil Meron and Craig Zadan having worked with them twice before on “Annie” and then on “Raisin in the Sun,” and so they approached me. At first I thought they were crazy–not for doing this but for approaching me. And then we talked about it, and thought that sounds like an amazing thing and I’d love to be part of something like this. If you’re willing to have me, then yeah, I’ll do it.
You have two Grammys and five Tonys and a bunch of other awards. Why would you think it was crazy to be part of this?
It was never a show I thought I’d be a part of. You know what I mean? At the time when they approached me I thought, well, for lack of a better word, I’m too tall to play that role. But just in terms of whatever. And then I thought I was a little too young to play Mother Abbess. Then I did some research and I saw that the Mother Abbess on Broadway was actually 43 when she played it…So I thought, oh, maybe there’s a different way in that I can find. And so yeah, once I thought I could get over those two things I was very excited about connecting with this character.
You were actually born in Berlin, right?
I was.
So you may have a closer regional connection to this material than anyone else in the cast!
This is true! I was given a music box when I was born that played “Edelweiss.” My uncle gave me that. Germany was certainly trying to “bring Austria home” during that time. So I guess I could call Germany a homeland. It is the land of my birth.
So will you be performing this twice–once for the East coast and another for the West?
No, we’ll just be performing it once. And then they’ll broadcast it at the proper time for the West Coast. We will be absolutely live. There’s been all this speculation about whether we’re live or not. We’re absolutely live…We had to record the soundtrack earlier. But for the TV broadcast, as we do it, you will see it.
You’re very active on Twitter. Have you taken note of anything that’s been said about the show before it airs?
Well, yes of course. I know Carrie has run into the hate tweets that she’s not Julie Andrews, and she shouldn’t be touching this, which is ridiculous. Everyone has been saying Julie Andrews is the original. And while Julie Andrews is absolutely iconic in the role, Mary Martin [who played the part on Broadway] is actually the original. And Mary Martin actually sang things lower and had a voice more similar to Carrie’s actually. So Carrie’s had to deal with that. And I’ve had to deal with the “Excuse me, a black Mother Abbess? What does this mean? There is no way there were black people in Austria in the 30s!’ So I’ve had to deal with the hate tweets as far as that’s concerned. And you just have to let it go. If that’s what they want to spend their time doing, we can’t be bothered with that. We can only approach the material with the greatest amount of love and respect which i s what I think we’re doing. Those who want to hate are going to hate regardless. If it wasn’t this it would be something else. It says more about those people than it does about us.
Your character has to belt out “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.” What are your feelings about having to perform that live?
Just focus on what Mother Abbess is really trying to do. And what’s she trying to do is give Maria some serious tough love and kicking her out. She’s saying no, you can’t run from your problems. This is opportunity in your life knocking on the door saying here we are. Here is your life. This is your destiny. And I’m not going to let you run away from it because it seems scarey. So if I focus on that I think I’ll be okay. If I focus on–”oh this is a hard song, I hope I don’t screw up,” then I’ll screw up.
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