Alpine wonderland of Leavenworth, Wash., stages ‘Sound of Music’ every summer, and becomes a holiday capital in winter
Paul Davis is a lawyer at the Department of Energy, but he’d always wanted to play Captain von Trapp in “The Sound of Music.” His dad was a naval officer, like the character, and Davis’ family would watch the movie over popcorn and root beer when it came on TV at Christmastime. “I grew up identifying as a von Trapp,” he says.
The town’s history museum notes that Leavenworth fell on hard times after its sawmill closed in 1927 and the railroad changed its route to avoid avalanches. But in the 1960s, Ted Price and Bob Rodgers built an alpine-themed inn down the road, inspired by Bob’s memories of Bavarian villages from World War II. They convinced Leavenworth that a similarly designed overhaul would bring in tourists, pointing to California’s Danish-themed town of Solvang.
At the impressive Nutcracker Museum, you can find 9,000 items — rows and rows of Santas and soldiers but also centuries-old nutting stones for holding nuts as they’re struck with other stones, and spiked “chestnut soles” for stomping on them like wine grapes. The man to our left, Alex Holzer, in his early 50s, lives near Seattle but goes to Leavenworth with his family for rafting, kayaking, skiing and snowshoeing. He grew up in Austria and said the area reminds him of villages back home, down to the wide wooden baskets of flowers hanging off balcony railings. “It looks kind of kitschy if you don’t know those areas, but it’s actually very authentic,” he said.
Much of the cast were college students relocating for the summer, also finding roles in the theater company’s two other summer shows. They all got paid, and they also served as ushers or directed traffic in the parking lot.
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