Popular director Joshua Carr, directing this show for the fifth time, knows how to do this musical justice, even on the Welk’s relatively small stage. First order of business, assemble a fantastic cast! From New York he brought in Lauren Hathaway and Andrew Husmann for the leads. Lauren not only has the fresh look and sound of Maria, but a natural and charming rapport with the children that truly makes her performance stand out. Andrew delivers a moving rendition of Edelweiss and has that sense of strength and confidence befitting his naval hero status, as well as that needed sensitivity when Maria and his children finally win him over with the sound of their music.

Other standouts in this uncommonly deep cast are many. Victoria Strong, who last year wowed Welk audiences with her singing of You’ll Never Walk Alone in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, as well as giving her incredible (Billie-winning) performance as Mother in Moonlight’s Ragtime, here gives a lovely performance as the Mother Abbess which includes a stunning Climb Ev’ry Mountain to end the first act on an incredible note. All the nuns in her order get the first act started on a lofty note with the opening Preludium chorus.

On a much more secular note, Richard Fox as Max Detweiler and the delightful Lisa Robinson as Elsa Schraeder provide much of the humor as the captain’s very pragmatic friends. From the younger generation, Andrew Briedis as the messenger Rolf and Kelly Felthous as the eldest Von Trapp girl Liesl combine for a most engaging singing, dancing, and flirting performance of Sixteen Going on Seventeen before the dark shadow of the Nazis exposes their differences and threatens to pry them apart.