Dolly Gallagher Levi — the famed New York City matchmaker of the musical “Hello Dolly!” — has her toughest challenge yet when the very rich and very grumpy Horace Vandergelder seeks a wife.
She successfully matches many others — including Horace’s niece and two clerks — but everything seems to go wrong when it comes to matching Horace. Dolly then realizes she’d like to marry Horace herself, but only if her late husband will send her any sign, and if Horace himself will have her.
A “kitchen sink” production featuring a cast of dozens, “Hello Dolly!” is the Haddonfield Memorial High School Drama Club’s spring offering. The 1964 Tony Award winner for best musical, “Hello Dolly!” is based on Thornton Wilder’s 1955 play, “The Matchmaker,” and was the basis for a 1969 film starring Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau.
Under the guidance of Matt DiDonato, dance captain Valerie Goetter and HMHS vocal music director Tyler Mills, the show gets going Friday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the high school auditorium.
When the Sun visited a rehearsal Feb. 19, junior Katrina Edwards was going through the motions of the lead role as she practiced for the first-act finale, “Before The Parade Passes By.” Along with two dozen of her classmates, she navigated a runway that will eventually bring audience and actors closer together.
“The runway’s exciting and it’s so different to be that close to the audience,” Edwards explained. “It’s unique to this show. Dolly is going to see the parade where the whole town is marching, and she feels a connection for the first time in her life. She decides that she’s going to join them.”
The set piece requires the cast be perfect with their lines, choreography and, most crucially, their peripheral vision as they navigate the extra space their stage affords.
“When we learn dances, we start in our dance room downstairs, so it’s a challenge transferring it to the stage, because the spacing is different,” Edwards added. “We’ve been working on ‘Parade’ for about a month.”
Chloe Griffault, who assumes the role of Ernestina Money and also is in the ensemble, recognized a different set of challenges inherent in proper preparation for the show.
“A lot of the choreography is done on your toes, which is really hard on your calves. It’s way harder than it looks, which is something I didn’t expect,” she admitted.
“As far as the character of Ernestina, I had a lot of freedom with it. I basically got to do whatever I want for it,” Griffault added. “And that’s great because it’s very comedic, and probably the most comedic role in the show. Although she’s on stage for not very long — she leaves a lasting impression.”
As drama club vet Antony Post pointed out, “Dolly” is a technically and physically demanding show, with worries about memorization, syncopation and positioning clashing at once.
“I think what was challenging for a lot of us was, this is a very dance-heavy show,” Post said. “It’s a very specific type of dancing. It’s set in the 1890s, so we basically had to learn about this different culture.
“We had to decide on all the characteristics of our character and go from there with the dancing, singing, dialects and body positions for each.”
Will Tully, who plays Cornelius Hackl, said the character spoke to him because he’s kind of a dreamer, a young man working at a dead-end job who wants more to life. Tully brings that youthful enthusiasm to the role, but knows he has to ratchet up the intensity in his preparation.
“Balancing everything is really challenging and I think it takes a certain work ethic to master that. You have to do some work outside of the rehearsal. You have to go home and memorize lines” he related.
“What I like to do is to write down what my character’s motivations are and background, things the audience will never know, but things I feel better about knowing about my character to fully portray them on stage.”
Post summed it all up by saying the great thing about ‘Dolly’ is that it’s a show which relies on the ensemble and everybody pitching in and doing great work, because it has such big, classic and iconic group numbers.
“It relies on everybody working together to bring that energy up and make it a great show.”
For more information about the production, including show times, ticket pricing and purchase points, visit: https://hmhsdrama.com/.
