Music actress started off portraying von Trapp girls
Jill-Christine Wiley is about to say “so long, farewell” to the lead role in The Sound of Music.
The NETworks Presentations production of the much-loved Rodgers & Hammerstein musical will make one of the last stops on its national tour Friday-Sunday at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall before wrapping up at the beginning of June.
Wiley plays slightly wild novice nun Maria Rainer, whose Mother Abbess (Lauren Kidwell) decides that an interim assignment as governess to the seven children of a strict Austrian naval officer (Mike McLean as Captain Georg von Trapp) will help her decide whether she’s suited to convent life.
“[I’ve] done the show in three different productions now — I played Marta in a community theater production as a child; as a teenager I understudied Liesl and a postulant in abbey in the ensemble. Now I’m stepping into the shoes of Maria. I’m still making discoveries eight days a week — I never thought of this lyric that way, or maybe they mean this. It’s incredible. Two very smart men,” referring to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.
“It’s a show everybody knows and loves. But at the same time, I feel like I’ve grown with the show; I’ve gotten to see so many aspects of [it].”
Wiley, a native of Lancaster, Pa., may have come through town a few years ago in the touring company of Beauty and The Beast (she was part of the ensemble and understudied the lead role of Belle). She’s no stranger to Rodgers & Hammerstein — she played Carrie Pipperidge in a regional production of Carousel.
This is Wiley’s second year with the tour, and she’s looking forward to a bit of time off.
“I think I’m going to be taking a little break,” she says. “Maybe I’ll get to see the show somewhere.
“The immediate role I’ll be playing is baking in my kitchen and having my dogs in the apartment with me and getting back to what life for Jill-Christine Wiley is like in New York City for a bit,” she adds. “Regrouping there and seeing what comes next, careerwise.”