Though the tour isn’t stopping in Spokane, some in the area likely perked up upon hearing about the latest national tour of “The Sound of Music.”
Tucked into the cast and crew are two performers who were born and raised in the Inland Northwest. Ariana Ferch is playing Liesl, the oldest child in the musical von Trapp family, and violinist Sarah Fazendin is leading the band as concertmaster.
Ferch, daughter of writer and educator Shann (Ray) Ferch, grew up, unsurprisingly, in a creative household. Her mother sang, her father wrote and played piano, and her older sister was the first to give theater a try. Ferch followed in her footsteps, taking ballet and dance classes from a young age.
Fazendin too grew up surrounded by art, saying she was raised on musical theater and movie musicals by a mother who sang and a father who played accordion. When she was 9 years old, Fazendin’s parents told her about an article they’d read that explained the benefits of young children taking music lessons.
“You can either take a year of piano lessons, or you can take a year of something else,” Fazendin remembers her parents saying.
“I pulled violin out of thin air, got started and it stuck,” she said.
Fazendin attributes her drive, her belief that making it to Broadway was a possibility to her teachers at the Pend Oreille Playhouse and Mountain Harmony Show Choir.
The Playhouse’s Dee Ann Boydston is responsible for helping bring Fazendin’s talents on violin to the theater, after she asked her to audition for “Fiddler on the Roof.”
The pair would chat about Cheyenne Jackson, who was born and raised around Spokane, and Fazendin remembers thinking, “I really want to do that.”
Though she stayed dedicated to the instrument, driving from Newport to Spokane for violin lessons and to perform with the Spokane Youth Symphony, many people told Fazendin that playing the violin wasn’t a career.
“What are you actually going to do?” she remembers people asking.
But she stuck with her dream, earning a bachelor’s degree in violin performance and music ministry from Whitworth University and a master’s in violin performance from New York University.
In a full-circle moment, her first big professional job after grad school was playing violin for the Broadway tour of “Fiddler on the Roof.”
After Ferch and her older sister showed an interest in theater, their mother began researching different opportunities and instructors.
“In my family, it was work ethic, and it’s relying on yourself to make yourself prepared for the world you want to get into and the life you want to have,” she said.
Ferch’s mother found Ballet Arts Academy, and the girls began taking dance lessons. Ferch was initially more interested in ballet than theater, calling the latter scary. She also loved to sing though, so she would often have to decide whether to audition for the school play or musical or participate in a dance recital.
Along with dance, Ferch learned to play piano and guitar. She worked with Michael Millham and Darnelle Preston, both of whom work at Gonzaga University, on guitar and voice lessons, respectively. She also worked with Jadd Davis, former artistic director of Coeur d’Alene Summer Theater, and Teri Woodroof, her teacher at the Oaks Classical Christian Academy, who she said taught her the creativity and individuality of art and theater.
Ferch also looked up to her older sister, following her to studying theater at Oklahoma City University.
“Looking up to my older sister really helps me a lot,” she said. “We still teach each other and learn from each other.”
Even though they’re both creatives from the Inland Northwest, Ferch and Fazendin did not know each other prior to booking “The Sound of Music.”
The performers both attended Ballet Arts Academy, though they’re not sure if they ever crossed paths. While a student at Whitworth, Fazendin played in the pit orchestra for Ferch’s high school musical productions, but again, the pair can’t recall if they met.
It took this tour, which launched in October and runs through May 2027, to bring the two together.
Both grew up with “The Sound of Music.” Fazendin watched the musical many, many times with her family and has special memories of her mom singing “Edelweiss” to her when she had trouble sleeping.
Ferch played Louisa in a production of “The Sound of Music” in seventh grade, with her younger sister as Marta and her older sister as Maria. Her older sister’s boyfriend, now husband, played Captain von Trapp.
She also saw the “Sound of Music” national tour, which featured the same director and sets as the current tour, when it came to Spokane during her sophomore year of high school.
“I never would have imagined that I would be doing it and being Liesl, because that was just such a beautiful production to witness,” she said.
Ferch loved Liesl growing up because she is so kind with her siblings. While rehearsing with director Jack O’Brien, they spoke of how Liesl lost her mother at a young age and had to step into that motherly role for her younger siblings.
That’s a lot of burden on a 16-year-old, Ferch said, that Liesl doesn’t fully feel until Maria comes in and becomes a mother to the children.
“I’ve really enjoyed getting to play that each night, because you get to see that shift and that trust built between Maria and Liesl and all of the children,” she said. “Cayleigh Capaldi, who plays our Maria, is such a wonderful woman and such a wonderful friend, and I love getting to build that and find the nuances of the character and the story.
“That’s what’s special about this show. There’s different things that you can see as an audience member and an actor each night that are highlighted throughout the story, since Jack has created such beautiful moments between each character and each scene.”
So far, Fazendin and Ferch are having a blast on the road. There is a high level of professionalism among everyone involved, Fazendin said.
“When you’re on tour with people who don’t feel respected and supported and really care about the show, then it’s a lot harder,” she said. “Here we have a really good crew of people.”
“The love for each other is very, very palpable, and I think that’s grown with a joy and an eagerness to be there and to do well for your castmates and for the audience,” Ferch said.
For all the beauty of the music and sets in the show, “The Sound of Music” plays differently with neo-Nazis and far-right extremists becoming more and more vocal. From both on stage and the pit, Ferch and Fazendin hear audience responses to the show, especially to scenes in the second act when Captain von Trapp decides to take a stand against the Nazis.
In the movie, Captain von Trapp rips the Nazi flag. In the musical, he looks at the flags and decides to sing “Edelweiss.”
“You can feel the seriousness of it in the audience,” Fazendin said. “I think especially at this time, sometimes you can feel it in the energy when people are really connecting with that struggle of ‘There’s a lot of stuff going on. We don’t really know what’s right or what’s wrong. Some of us feel really empowered to make a stand. Some of us are not really sure.’ ”
She and Ferch recall a performance at the Kennedy Center, where the tour kicked off, during which an audience member yelled “Resistance!” during a scene in which Captain von Trapp refused to side with the Nazis.
Fazendin also feels this energy when working with the 10 local musicians who are hired at each stop on the “Sound of Music” tour to support her and the other three touring musicians. The musicians, who have a four-hour rehearsal with the touring musicians, often come in feeling disheartened about the lack of support for the arts and President Trump’s handling of the Kennedy Center.
“It’s a tricky time, and I think everybody feels that,” she said. “The show is something that’s really lovely too because it’s so joyful and it’s so heartwarming, and it also addresses some really serious issues, but with such grace and in a way that doesn’t necessarily feel too heavy to enjoy.”
Lifting Fazendin up though is knowing that many of these local musicians are teachers who bring their students to the show. She remembers her mother taking her to Best of Broadway shows at the then-INB Performing Arts Center and sometimes crying because she didn’t think she would ever get to be in their shoes.
“It’s not something that every musician wants to do, even the kids who are musicians, but for me, it was always my dream,” she said. “That’s something that’s really special for me to be able to share that with younger people and to wave at the kids and show them my violin when they come to look over the edge of the pit.”
Which is perhaps the best example of why “The Sound of Music” is still so beloved after so long. There’s so much joy and heart in the show, both on and off stage, but it’s not afraid to tackle tough subjects.
“Our audiences really were moved by it,” Ferch said. “From the conversations I’ve had with some audience members from time to time, they always talk about how timely it is at any time, especially now, and it’s given them hope, but also given them a push to look at our world and try and do something about it.”