Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
She’s a dolly
Broadway legend Betty Buckley coming to Arsht with ‘Hello Dolly.’
It will be Broadway legend Betty Buckley coming down the stairs of Harmonia Gardens restaurant in the iconic scene spotlighting the title song of “Hello, Dolly!” Tickets will go on sale at noon Friday for the national tour that will bring Buckley Nov. 20-25 to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami.
Tickets will be available through the Arsht Center Box Office at 1300 Biscayne Blvd., in Miami, by calling 305-949-6722 or at ArshtCenter.org. Ticket prices start at $34.
Buckley is known for starring in the late 1970s TV comedy-drama “Eight Is Enough.” In 1983, she won a Tony Award for her portrayal of Grizabella in the musical “Cats.” She also appeared in the 1976 movie “Carrie” and the 1988 musical version of the horror story. Other film roles include two M. Night Shyamalan movies, “The Happening” in 2008 and “Split” in 2016. She has also starred on Broadway in “1776,” “Drood,” “Sunset Boulevard” and “Triumph of Love.”
The musical-comedy “Hello, Dolly!” is based on Thornton Wilder’s 1938 stage comedy (and flop) “The Merchant of Yonkers,” which Wilder retooled in 1958 and re-titled “The Matchmaker.” It was a hit. “Hello, Dolly!” debuted on Broadway in 1964 and became Carol Channing’s signature role as well as a real box-office blockbuster, even if she was dumped for Barbra Streisand when no less than Gene Kelly directed the movie version in 1969.
Bette Midler’s turn last year in a revival of “Hello, Dolly!” sold out houses 53 years after the show bowed on the Great White Way and made the musical buzz-worthy again, snagging four Tony Awards on the way.
Two years before that, “Hello, Dolly!” made headlines in South Florida when Boca Raton’s Wick Theatre staged a production starring a man in the female lead role, a first in the United States. Lee Roy Reams, who twice has co-starred in “Hello, Dolly!” with Channing, got special permission to appear in drag as the titular character Dolly Levi — a task made easier because the show’s composer Jerry Herman was a longtime friend and could keep a watchful eye since he lives nearby in Miami Beach.
Herman’s score includes “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” “Elegance,” “It Only Takes a Moment,” “It Takes a Woman,” “Before the Parade Passes By” and, of course, that title song, delivered as the penultimate showstopper in Harmonia Gardens.