Scotland's new Sound of Music star revealed - 20 years after singing classic songs in school show

Kirsty Findlay with some of the cast of The Sound of Music, which opens at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in November. Picture: Fraser Band | Fraser Band

She sang the songs of Julie Andrews in a primary school show and played a rebellious choir girl in her first major acting role.

More than 20 years later, Kirsty Findlay is to become Scotland's Sound of Music star after being cast as wayward nun Maria in a major Christmas production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

Actress Kirsty Findlay will be starring in The Sound of Music at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. | Supplied

The Lanarkshire-born actress will be leading the cast of Pitlochry Festival Theatre's new version of the show, which is based on the true story of the von Trapp family who fled Nazi-occupied Austria before the Second World War.

The 31-year-old is an Olivier Award nominee after starring in the Scottish choir girl musical Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour and has also performed off Broadway since graduating from Edinburgh Napier University in 2015.

A new production of The Sound of Music will be staged at Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 15 November till 22 December. Picture: Fraser Band

She will be starring opposite Ali Watt - whose recent stage roles include the Runrig-inspired musical The Stamping Ground - as Captain von Trapp, who falls for Maria after she arrives to look after his seven troublesome children and wins them over by teaching them to sing.

Elizabeth Newman is the current artistic director at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Picture: Fraser Band

Ms Findlay, from Motherwell, said: "My genuine earliest memory of anything from The Sound of Music was at my primary school concert when I was 10.

"My year group did a kind of Julie Andrew mash-up, with some songs from The Sound of Music and others from Mary Poppins.

"Our teacher asked us who wanted to sing a couple of songs and a couple of others auditioned. My teacher didn't realise I could sing until then and it was the first time I had performed in front of anyone.

"My gran told me recently that I didn't actually tell anyone in my family that I was going to be singing. My mum and dad were like 'wait a minute.' I was probably too embarrassed.

"I do have a memory of forgetting the words during one of the songs from Mary Poppins. There was a woman on the front row mouthing it to me. I was mortified.

"But it definitely gave me a taste for it. I knew really early on when I started high school that this is what I wanted to do."

Pitlochry's production of The Sound of Music, which will run from 15 November-22 December, will be largely based on the original 1959 Broadway production, which was adapted into the 1965 film starring Julie Andrews as Maria.

Ms Findlay said of her character: "She is a child at heart, but not in a massively immature way."Even though she has gone off to become a nun, she has never lost her sense of fun and a desire to squeeze the joy out of life. She just infects everybody else with that."

Ms Findlay had her breakthrough role with the National Theatre of Scotland in 2016 when she joined the eight-strong cast of the musical Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour.

Based on Alan Warner's best-selling novel, The Sopranos, the show followed a group of Catholic choir girls from Oban let loose in Edinburgh for a day.

Ms Findlay was nominated for an Oliver Award along with the rest of the cast for its run at the National Theatre in London in what was her first professional job after graduating.

She recalled: "I was still at uni and didn't even have an event when I heard about the first casting call. I basically begged my teacher to get me in for an audition. I didn't get cast for the initial run. I think I was just too young as it was such an in-your-face show, but I got my foot in the door the second time round when it did an international tour.

"It was an incredible experience and such a dream for a first job. I learned so much from everyone in the cast. I'm still friends with all of them and I'm really close with a few. We were just bonded by the whole experience, which is really great because that's what the show was really all about."

Ms Findlay has been cast in The Sound of Music two years after performing in New York for the first time, when she and Bethany Tennick starred in Scottish composer Finn Anderson's musical Islander, which they both appeared in around the Highlands and Islands in 2018. They reunited for his new musical, A Mother's Song, which premiered in Scotland last year.

She said: "We performed Islander off-Broadway for a few months, which was just amazing. I just never thought it was a possibility that I could do that. We were actually on the same block as Hamilton.

"Finn is just an incredible composer and lyricist. I just love working with him and take every opportunity I can to do that. I'm actually scared we're going to lose him in Scotland because I think he is going to go so far."

Ms Findlay has just had a major starring role at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, playing the lead role in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, as well appearing in Sense and Sensibility and Footloose.

Footloose has just transferred to the new New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich for a three-week run, which will end two weeks after rehearsals have begun for The Sound of Music, a clash which Ms Findlay thought was unsurmountable when she was initially approached about the role by Elizabeth Newman, who will be directing The Sound of Music before leaving her role as PFT's artistic director.

Ms Findlay said: "Elizabeth told me she really wanted me to do it and said that they could make it work if I wanted to do it as well. I had to think about the logistics of it.

"I feel like I've really built up my stamina over the last few months, I kind of knew the music already, I'd never worked with Elizabeth as a director before, and didn't know when I would have another chance to play Maria.

"I would never have imagined that I would be able to play a role like this, as we don't tend to put on massive musicals in Scotland. I've been involved in quite a lot of brand new pieces, which are really exciting. There is so much talent out there and there are some incredible stories to be told."