Prologue

Dear Mr. Hammerstein,

It may come as a surprise that I am writing to you, as it appears that the theater industry believes I am dead and can now make up whatever they wish about me. Although I appreciate a good yarn as much as anyone, I would ask if the following summary truly seems to be an accurate representation of my life, about which your new musical is supposedly based:

There was once a young woman from Austria who wished to become a nun. She prayed and sang her devotionals, until one day she managed to sing her way into the heart of a dashing young widower with seven children. Though she was nervous about becoming a stepmother, it turned out that all seven children adored her. And though the young woman and her new family were forced to flee their homeland, everything turned out just fine in the end (so fine, in fact, that a musical was written about her life).

I am given to understand that although the musical is nearly complete, the lyrics you are writing remain to be added. I am therefore reaching out in the earnest hope that you will remove the most egregious errors in the script before it is too late. In January, I will be fifty-five years old. If statistics are to be believed, I can anticipate living another twenty years. It is my deepest wish not to spend those remaining years explaining how I never escaped from Austria by crossing the Alps into Switzerland (a magnificent feat, given that Salzburg has never bordered Switzerland), or how my eldest stepchild, Rupert, has never been a sixteen-year-old girl named Liesl. And this is to say nothing of all the other fanciful changes throughout the script.

I know that someone of your renown would not wish to promote a work that has taken a person's life and altered it so dramatically. For this reason, I am requesting a meeting at your earliest convenience, as I have several ideas on how the script can be fixed.

Sincerest regards,

Maria von Trapp