The Munster Theatre Company (the Performing Arts Department of Munster High School) is pleased to present the Classic Broadway musical, HELLO DOLLY! The Artistic Staff includes: Dr. Larry A Brechner, Producer/Director; William Woods Music/Orchestra Pit Director; and Carol Lynn Brechner, Assistant Director; Alexa Johnson as Student Choreographer; and as Eric Etter Student Director. HELLO, DOLLY! is an ebullient and irresistible story of the joy of living, glittering with happy songs, shining with loving scenes, alive with the personality of one of the most fabulous characters on the musical stage.
HELLO, DOLLY! is the story of Mrs. Dolly Levi's (Katie Taylor) efforts to marry Horace Vandergelder (Nick Estes), the well-known half-a-millionaire, and send his money circulating among the people like rainwater the way her late husband, Ephraim Levi, taught her. Along the way she also succeeds in matching up the young and beautiful Widow, Irene Molloy with Vandergelder's head clerk, Cornelius Hackl (Jonathan Wachala); Cornelius' assistant, Barnaby Tucker (Christian Fary), with Irene Molloy's (Megan Miller) assistant, Minnie Fay (Helena Jancosek); and the struggling artist, Ambrose Kemper (Teddy Niemiec), with Mr. Vandergelder's weeping niece, Ermengarde (Natalie Vick).
Dolly goes to visit Vandergelder at his hay and feed store in Yonkers, then later returns to Irene Molloy's hat shop in New York. Out into the streets of the city, they are all caught up in the great Fourteenth Street Association Parade, and finally to the most elegant and expensive restaurant in town, the Harmonia Gardens. There, Dolly is greeted by the waiters, cooks, doormen and wine stewards in one of the most famous songs in the history of American musical comedy, Hello, Dolly! After a police raid where everyone is brought before a judge, on Vandergelder is jailed as Dolly tells him in song, “So Long Dearie” about leaving him alone. In the end Dolly quotes her late husband as she says, "Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow."
HELLO DOLLY! is based on Throton Wilder’s 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and re-titled The Matchmaker in 1955. With a score from Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, HELLO DOLLY! opened at the St. James Theatre on January 16, 1964 and ran for 2,844 performances. It was produced by David Merrick directed and choreographed by Gower Champion with Carol Channing starred as Dolly, David Burns as Vandergelder, Charles Nelson Reilly as Cornelius, and Eileen Brennan as Irene Malloy. Originally written for Ethel Merman as Dolly, she eventually did appear in the role along with a string of other Broadway notables including: Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Mary Martin, Phyllis Diller, and Pearl Bailey (in an all-black version with Cab Calloway and Ernestine Jackson). A 1969 motion picture version directed by Gene Kelly starring Barbra Streisand as Dolly, Water Matthau as Vandergelder, a very young Michael Crawford as Cornelius, and Tommy Tune as Ambrose. Also Louis Armstrong appeared in a musical cameo during the “Hello Dolly” number.
HELLO DOLLY! will run Thursday, May 5; Friday, May 6; Saturday, May 7 at 7pm, and Sunday, May 8 at 2pm in Munster Auditorium. Tickets are $7 at the door (senior and student tickets $5). Tickets are available at the Auditorium Box Office on performance nights or in advance by calling: (219) 836-3200 x3245, by email at apkinser@munaud.org.