Stage Spectacular
When “Hello, Dolly!” opens at the Spokane Civic Theatre on Friday, it will be just about the biggest production the Civic has staged in 18 years. Or in other words, since the last time the Civic performed “Hello, Dolly!”
Here’s what this show has:
“ A cast of 40, including eight children.
“ A six-piece musical combo, conducted by musical director Gary Laing.
“ A multi-unit set, including a grand staircase on which Dolly Levi makes her big entrance.
“ A full complement of custom-made 1898 costumes, including corsets, pantaloons and bustles.
“We went full out,” said Yvonne A.K. Johnson, the Civic’s recently hired artistic director, who is directing the show. “It looks really beautiful.”
Jan Neumann, who also had the lead in last year’s “I Do! I Do!,” plays Dolly Levi, a New York society maven and matchmaker. This is one of the great women’s roles in musical theater; Dolly is full of charisma and personality, and she gets to sing many of the best Jerry Herman songs.
Michael Hynes, another Civic vet, plays Horace Vandergelder. Other main roles are filled by Kendra Kimball as Mrs. Molloy, Andrew Ware-Lewis as Cornelius, Jimmy-James Pendleton as Barnaby and Jaime Mathis as Minnie Fay.
Other cast members include Evelyn Renshaw, Parker Albin, Danielle Read, Cathy Williams, Christopher LeBlanc, Steve Anderson, Robert Moss, Henry McNulty, Buddy Todd, Dereck Gade, John Wittman, Carl Fuller, Kate Cubberley, Zachary Jackson, Joel Pendleton, Hunter Klaue, Ellie Hockett, Cody Stephan, Dwain Crum, Ellie Wright, Madi Wright, Emily Berger, Tiffany Goetz, Kera Ioane, Ali Folsom, Meaghan Halverson, Lacey Bohnet, Ryan Marie Patterson, Maria Caprile, Shanleigh Sullivan and Brandon Schmadeka.
Johnson said one of her goals in this production was to involve as many community members as possible. A trio of choreographers – Troy Nickerson, Kathie Doyle-Lipe and Amanda Lochmiller – was commissioned for individual dance numbers.
“I wanted to feature the best choreographers in this area,” said Johnson. “Each one did unique work and their numbers really complement each other.”
“Hello, Dolly!” has been a staple of American culture ever since it debuted on Broadway in 1964 – and even before.
It’s a musical version of Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker,” which was a beloved comedy hit in 1955. “The Matchmaker,” in turn, had been adapted by Wilder from an 1842 German farce.
The New York critics instantly embraced “Hello, Dolly!,” largely because of the outsized performance by Carol Channing in the lead role.
“Almost literally, it’s a dream, a drunken carnival, a happy nightmare, a wayward circus in which the mistress of ceremonies opens wide her big-as-millstone eye, spreads her white gloved arms in ecstatic abandon, trots out on a circular runway that surrounds the orchestra and proceeds to dance rings around the conductor,” wrote Walter Kerr of the Herald Tribune.
It ran a total of 2,844 performances, and its influence was also felt on the pop music charts. Louis Armstrong had a No. 1 hit with the title song in 1964. The original-cast soundtrack album also went to No. 1 in 1964, temporarily displacing the Beatles.
“Hello, Dolly!” then went on to become a hit movie with Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau in 1969.