07/20/2007

Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Bob and Jan Klump work with Micha Thomas as she sings one of the songs from "The Sound Of Music."

Meet the Klumps

Couple takes helm of Northport's production of 'The Sound of Music'

NORTHPORT — They've coached actors and singers from Broadway's "Les Miserables” and "Thoroughly Modern Millie” and even taught Darrell Hammond of "Saturday Night Live” a thing or two.

Now Robert and Jan Klump are bringing their professional touch to the Northport Theatre Co. as director and music director of "The Sound of Music,” opening Thursday at the Northport Community Arts Center.

On leave from their private studio for singers and actors, the Massachusetts couple is spending seven weeks in the area to pull together the show at the invitation of NCAC trustees Ann and Ken Bloomquist and Curt Leece. Leece and his wife, Judie, lived in Bridgeport when the Klumps directed a Bridgeport High School production of the show back in 1980 and remembered their work, Jan Klump said.

This time, the Klumps direct a cast of approximately 50 actors and singers from Northport and surrounding communities in the beloved Tony Award-winning show by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Based on the singing von Trapp family and their escape from Austria just before World War II, the production stars Micha Thomas as the Nonnberg Abbey postulant Maria Rainer, Billie Thompson as The Mother Abbess and Alan Woods as Captain von Trapp.

Other cast members are Catherine Paolacci, Judie Leece and Joan Post Brown as Sisters Berthe, Margaretta and Sophia; Sophia Mosher as Liesl; Nolan Racich as Rolf; Dan Bruining as Max Detweiler; and Ayriel Mawby as Elsa Schraeder.

"It's a heavy production,” said Robert Klump, an acting coach who has also directed and produced summer stock and worked in children's theater in New York. "The production values are pretty demanding with regard to sets, with regard to costuming, just with the number of people on stage at any time. It takes a tremendous amount of effort from the people that are working in the technical areas, the production areas — and they're up to that.”

Just eight rehearsals into the show, he said the couple already had great expectations for opening night.

"The cooperation is amazing,” he said. "These people will give you their last ounce of effort. They work really, really hard.”

For Thomas, a veteran of several local productions including "Sweet Charity” and "The Rocky Horror Show” at the Old Town Playhouse and "The Boy Friend” and "Guys and Dolls” at Northport Theatre Co., the role of the von Trapp children's governess is the role of a lifetime.

"I have dreamed of having this part since I was 4 years old and we watched 'The Sound of Music' on TV,” said Thomas, 25. "It's a big part and she's a very complex character. It's a blast figuring out who she is and how she fits in my world.”

A 2000 graduate of Traverse City West Senior High who is working toward a marketing degree through Davenport College, she is also helping to choreograph and stage the show, which features a live orchestra, Robert Klump said.

"She's very talented,” added Jan Klump, a professional voice teacher who once taught Jane Rhodes, wife of Traverse Symphony Orchestra music director Kevin Rhodes.

For the Klumps, directing the show means a chance to experience life in a region they have previously only visited on trips to see friends or to the National Cherry Festival with the Bridgeport High School marching band, where Robert was one of five directors. Currently residents of South Hadley, Mass., about 20 minutes from the Springfield home of the Rhodeses, their temporary home is a centennial cherry farm in Northport.

"This is the longest we've been up here,” Jan Klump said. "It's so beautiful.”

"The Sound of Music” runs through Aug. 5, and fans of the film version with Julie Andrews may be in for a surprise, Robert Klump said.

"The original production is what we're doing, not the movie, and there's a bit of difference,” he said. "In the movie version they dropped two numbers and added two others. And Elsa, the baroness, is a singing role in the original Broadway production.”

Performances are July 26-28 and Aug. 2-4 at 8 p.m. and Sundays July 29 and Aug. 5 at 3 p.m. For tickets or more information, call (231) 386-5001.