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Long episodes of prestige miniseries,
This Is Us moments that get us all teary
Neat little plotlines all tied up with strings,
These are a few of our favorite things
All of these are also apparently the favorite things of the Von Trapp family, whose story was made the stuff of musical-theater canon by Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. The stage show and its 1966 film adaptation end with the family fleeing Austria and escaping the Nazis, but in reality, that’s only when their musical careers really began to take off, at least in the United States. Now, the great-great-grandson of Baron Von Trapp, Myles Von Trapp Derbyshire, is adapting that postscript into a multigenerational scripted TV drama that he likens to This Is Us and The Crown. Called Baroness, the show will be set in the 1940s in the United States, and rather than rehashing the singsong cheeriness (and uncomfortable Nazi-youth-love-story subplot) of the musical, the series will have an edge: Maria Von Trapp, made famous by Julie Andrews, might be kind of a pill. Myles tells ”Page Six” that the real Maria was “a very loving but strong-willed woman with a temper,” and the show will depict her as such.
One other thing the show will focus on: property disputes. The series will begin in the period after the family opened an alpine-style lodge and resort in Stowe, Vermont, and will dramatically adapt the real family infighting and legal battles over lodge inheritance after Maria’s death in 1987. It all sounds very Yellowstone but with more lederhosen. Also, the show’s titular Baroness won’t be the woman who inspired one of the most beloved characters of all time, but rather her daughter-in-law, Myles’s grandmother Henriette. “The only person who could play my grandmother is Meryl Streep,” says Myles. And will it be a musical? “Oh God no,” he says. So get ready for the Sound of Music sequel everyone wants: a drama largely focused on estate law in the state of Vermont, starring Meryl Streep opposite a kind of bitchy Maria von Trapp. And zero singing. Lay-ee-odl-lay-ee-odl-oo!
Sound of Music von Trapp Family Is Making a Prestige TV Show
