The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Put on your Sunday clothes
Drama students set to stage award-winning comedy ‘Hello Dolly!’
PORTLAND — Had it with winter? The Portland High School players have just the antidote for you: three performances this Friday and Saturday of the rousing musical, “Hello Dolly!”
The show, which focuses on the matchmaking skills of Dolly Levi, has been a constant of the American musical theater since it opened to widespread acclaim in 1964. “Dolly” was adapted from Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker” by impresario David Merrick, with words by Michael Stewart and music by Jerry Herman (who also wrote the music for “Mame”).
And now Emily Bradshaw is ready to take her place in the role of Dolly on the stage of the Donald W. Gates Auditorium at Portland High School.
She won’t be alone: There will be 41 other students on stage performing and 47 more either behind the scenes or in the orchestra pit.
Part of the turnout is because Dolly “has great music and really is well-known,” said Sarah Ketterer, the middle school band
director and producer of the PHS musical. But the decision made four years ago to have a play every year instead of every other year has fed both interest and participation in the annual production, she said.
“That’s really built student interest. By having it a yearly thing, nobody falls out of it,” Ketterer said, adding the annual schedule has encouraged more boys to step forward and take part in the productions.
In addition to the title song, “Dolly” also features “Before the Parade Passes By” (a hit for Michael Crawford), “It Only Takes a Moment” and “Put on Your Sunday Clothes.”
Louis Armstrong’s classic version of “Hello, Dolly!” knocked The Beatles out of the No. 1 slot on the Billboard Top 100 when it was released in 1964.
Bradshaw is a veteran of previous PHS productions, including playing the role of Ruth in “The Pirates of Penzance” and Mrs. Banks in “Mary Poppins.” A senior en route next fall to the University of Connecticut, she has a warm, engaging air about her.
About her role as Dolly, Bradshaw said, “It’s awesome! She’s so over the top — which is completely opposite who I am in real life.”
She prepared for the role by “watching all the different versions (including the 1969 movie version starring Barbra Streisand) and listening to as many different versions as I could” and trying to incorporate aspects of them into her vision of the part, Bradshaw said.
Although she intends to enroll in UConn’s nursing program in the fall, Bradshaw said, “I’ll be doing theater.”
While she plays the title role, Bradshaw said the production is a collaborative effort. “This is not one-man show. I love the teachers and I love the crew.”
Cast, crew and orchestra alike, “I just appreciate them all so much.”
Set in New York on the cusp of the arriving 20th century, the plot traces Dolly’s effort to arrange various marriages — including one for herself: to a grumpy merchant Horace Vandergelder.
“She’s trying to marry Horace for his money,” Bradshaw confided.
In the PHS performance, the role of Horace is played by Cole Darby, a junior in his first show at PHS. But Darby has long experience on stage. “I’ve been doing acting since the fifth grade.”
But that was in plays, which he said generally have “a message. I prefer more entertainment” he said. Still, “I never really thought about doing a musical.”
Darby’s mother changed his mind. She pushed him to expand his talents by enrolling him in The Young People’s Center for Creative Arts, the East Hamptonbased summer performance program.
She promised Darby musical theater could — and would — be fun, and she was right, he said. “I started doing chorus last year,” and then when the school began casting for “Dolly” in October, Darby decided “to try something new.”
The first time out of the box, he landed the second lead, playing Vandergelder.
In its initial run on Broadway, “Dolly!” played for six years and some 2,844 performances, a record at the time, and snagged a clutch of Tony awards — 10 in all, a record at the time.
During its run, the show featured a career-making performance by Carol Channing. When Channing left the show, she was succeeded by, among others, Ginger Rogers, Pearl Bailey (in a groundbreaking all-African American cast), and Ethel Merman, who was intended to be the original lead but had initially turned down the role.
Bette Midler brought Dolly back to Broadway last year. She has since been succeeded by Bernadette Peters.
Darby said he intends to continue on the path he has chosen. “I’m planning to go college to study theater and eventually to play in big shows. That’s the objective.”
He will find himself in good company when the curtain goes up Friday night. “Hello Dolly!” will be presented at 7 p.m. Friday and at 1 and 7 p.m. Saturday. Portland High School/ Middle School is at 95 High St.
For tickets ($10, $8 for students and seniors, $6 for under 12), visit phs-musical. ticketleap.com/dolly.