Sound of Music play still 'sumptuous and so joyful' bbc.com

It's 60 years since theatre audiences first heard The Sound of Music. The story of the Trapp Family Singers went on to become the most profitable film of the 1960s – but first came the stage version, now obscured by memories of the Julie Andrews mega-hit. One of the original cast remembers the show as a powerful experience.

The opening scene of The Sound of Music remains fixed in Tim Crouse's mind. But he's not recalling Andrews striding across the Austrian Alps in the 1965 movie.

As the son of Russel Crouse, who co-wrote the stage version with Howard Lindsay, he was in the audience for a Sunday run-through for Broadway insiders. It was 1959 and he was 12. The show was without decor and the Rodgers and Hammerstein songs were played on a piano.