Carrie Underwood To Star In NBC’s ‘The Sound of Music’

Carrie Underwood will take on her next acting role, portraying Maria Von Trapp in NBC’s live broadcast of The Sound of Music, based on the original Broadway musical.

The three-hour event will air during the 2013 holiday season. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (producing team for NBC’s Smash) have partnered with NBC for the musical. “We’re thrilled to be presenting the Broadway version of The Sound of Music live,” said Zadan and Meron via a release, “and having Carrie Underwood as the star brings it to a new generation who will fall in love with it for the first time as many millions of people already have. It’s a particular joy to us as producers to see this amazing artist stretch into new territory with this classic musical.”

“To have a star like Carrie Underwood perform Maria in The Sound of Music—and in such a very special and unique production—is exciting beyond words,” said Ted Chapin, President, Rodgers & Hammerstein. “Part of the magic of Rodgers and Hammerstein is how their work has adapted itself to so many different incarnations, and I am certain the fresh spirit Underwood brings to her own songs will transition into exciting versions of the classic songs we all know and love.”

Underwood previously starred as youth minister Sarah Hill in the 2011 movie Soul Surfer and had a guest TV role in an episode of How I Met Your Mother. She also starred in her own holiday television variety special in 2009.