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Reality TV show chooses Maria for 'The Sound of Music' |
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Written by asap
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Sunday, 17 September 2006 |
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AP
British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber plays the piano in his Trump Tower apartment in New York, in this Oct. 17, 2001 file photo. Webber's big-budget production of the musical "The Sound of Music" has a new Maria, chosen on a British reality TV show.
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"How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?"
By letting the TV-viewing public pick the star of the latest West End production of "Sound of Music" in a competition reality show by that name.
British viewers on Saturday night plucked aspiring actress Connie Fisher from her job at a telephone call center to instant, if fleeting, fame.
"It's changed my life forever," said the 23-year-old, who will star as Maria in the Andrew Lloyd Webber big-budget production of the musical. It opens Nov. 14 at the London Palladium.
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CRITICISM: The show on the British Broadcasting Corp. drew a respectable 6 million viewers an episode. But some dismissed it as a gimmick. Britain's main actors' union called the program "demeaning." Theater director Trevor Nunn said reality TV shows "more or less rely on the viewing public being witness to distress. ... That is absolutely not how casting proceeds in the theater."
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SHE'S NOT SCARLETT: Lloyd Webber acknowledged he opted for the reality TV format after failing to sign Scarlett Johansson to play Maria, the irrepressible novice who becomes matriarch to a musical clan.
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EXPORTING THE IDEA: In the United States, NBC has announced plans to air the BBC-produced show "You're The One That We Want," which will choose lead roles for an upcoming Broadway revival of "Grease."
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