NBC to stage live telecast of 'The Sound of Music'

NBC is alive…with The Sound of Music. The network announced that it will team with Smash producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to present a live broadcast of the venerable musical.

“It is our supreme pleasure to broadcast — live — a new version of the seminal Broadway musical The Sound of Music for a whole new generation,” said NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt. “There used to be a tradition of broadcasting musicals live back in the 1950s and we’re thrilled to do it once again with a musical that has been a family classic for five decades. There is no more talented and creative producing team than Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to bring Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final – and most beloved – collaboration to network television in this groundbreaking live telecast.”

Added Zadan in a statement, “It isn’t our intention to produce a remake of the movie version of’The Sound of Music’ – that would be artistic blasphemy. What we want to do, instead, is to give audiences a completely fresh experience of this great Tony Award-winning stage musical in the form of a classic television event, combined with the spontaneity of a live performance. And all of the actors will be singing live; there will be no lip-synching to pre-recordings.”

Casting will begin immediately and an airdate will be announced shortly.

Besides producing the big screen versions of Hairspray and Chicago, Meron and Zadan also were the masterminds behind the telecasts of Cinderella, Annie, and Gypsy.