Hello, fun! That’s what our season-ending production of the Broadway blockbuster musical HELLO, DOLLY! promises to be when it hits the stage on Friday. The musical comedy, which boasts some of the greatest songs in musical theatre history, continues its run through Sunday, Aug. 5, at the Chattanooga Theatre Center.
HELLO, DOLLY!, which first opened on Broadway in 1964, is currently enjoying a hit revival in New York City, winning honors at last year’s Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical.
CTC director Scott Dunlap is shaping an equally spectacular show, drawing from Thornton Wilder’s original play “The Matchmaker” on which the musical is based to make our production as farcical, humorous, and broadly comic as it can be.
HELLO, DOLLY! is the story of Dolly Levi, an enterprising and widowed matchmaker making her way in New York City at the turn of the century. Among her many gigs, she is brokering the match between lady milliner Irene Molloy and Yonkers-based animal feed merchant and miserly “half-a-millionaire” Horace Vandergelder. Or so it would seem. Dolly actually plans to wed Horace herself so she can spread his money around “like manure.” She’ll have to make it seem like it was his idea first, though.
When Mr. Vandergelder leaves Yonkers for New York City to pay suit to the widowed Mrs. Molloy, his clerks, Cornelius and Barnaby, decide to take an unauthorized holiday themselves and seek adventure in the big city. Their mischief leads them to close encounters with Mr. Vandergelder and a double date at the most expensive restaurant in New York. It is there at the Harmonia Gardens where Dolly makes her grand entrance to a triumphant production number of the title song “Hello, Dolly.” An ensemble of dancing waiters, who perform with dazzling precision and breakneck speed, greet her, which is bound to bring down the house.
Starring in the title role of Dolly is CTC favorite Beth McClary, who has showcased her comic sensibilities in several CTC musicals, most recently December’s BEAUTY & THE BEAST Rob Inman, a versatile actor who has appeared in more than 30 Little Theatre/Theatre Centre productions since 1978, follows up a touching performance in the spring’s THE GLASS MENAGERIE with a turn as Horace Vandegelder in HELLO, DOLLY!
Other featured actors in the cast are Anne Barbieri (Irene Malloy), Jeremy Campbell (Cornelius Hackl), Tanner Dean (Ambrose Kemper), Joshua Harell (Barnaby Tucker), Ray Laliberte (Rudolph), Stefanie Oppenheimer (Ernestina Money), Genna Raborn (Ermengarde) and Kimberly Rye (Minnie Fay). A talented 20-person ensemble rounds out the cast.
Anticipating sell-outs following popular productions of THE WIZ and BEAUTY & THE BEAST earlier this season, we've extended the run of HELLO, DOLLY! to four weekends in the mainstage theatre.
For tickets, call the box office at 423 267-8534 or visit TheatreCentre.com.