True Tales of Theatrical Terror: "The Sound of Music"

100% TRUE! 100% TERRIFYING!

A friend of mine, let’s call him Mark, since that’s his name, was in a post-collegiate, semi-professional touring show for The Sound of Music.

One of the cast members prided herself on the authenticity of her Austrian dialect. She’d spent a few token years of her adolescent life, living in Austria. So, the chance to use her “authentic” dialect in the part of the Mother Superior, was a rare treat for her.

However, one line of dialogue was always slightly warped by the pronunciation. The Austrian dialect, though phonetically correct, sounded “wrong” and would always reduce the rest of the cast into fits of naughty giggles. The director tried several times to get the Mother Superior to change the dialect in that sentence, but the former Austrian held firm and would not budge on the matter.

And so it was that in every performance the supporting cast would gather in the wings, as Maria went back to her Mother Superior to express fear and anxiety about her emerging feelings for Captain Von Trapp, only to hear the line “Maria, what is you can’t face” ring out very clearly as “Maria, what is you CUNT face?”

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