Director Joseph DeMonico and The John Cooper School in The Woodlands, Texas recently staged an elaborate production of this classic musical. Playing the singular Dolly is the singular Meredith Tyler, a highly talented and versatile actress who this past summer was a rip as Miss Hannigan in Class Act’s Annie. Now in a completely different role, she completely delights as the fast-talking Dolly who has a lot of matches to set up and people to teach how to dance if she’s going to make up Vandergelder’s mind about marrying her. Besides the humorous persona, Meredith also wows vocally and finds the sensitive heart of the widow who misses her late husband in a beautifully and powerfully performed rendition of Before the Parade Passes By.

T. J. Seefeldt is her unwitting prey who is so sure that he’s being led to see Irene Molloy about a proposal that he splurged and bought her the expensive kind of chocolate-covered peanuts – unshelled. Yes, Vandergelder can be a bit on the cheap side (a trait that Dolly plans on doing away with). T. J. does a good job as the “rich, friendless, and mean” middle-aged man who is confused but eventually softened by Dolly’s shenanigans. He leads the cast in an amusingly staged It Takes a Woman scene that has the men trying to sound manly as they extol the virtues of “dainty” women who are seen lugging around large sacks of flour and whatnot.

Two other couples form most of the subplot when Vandergelder’s chief clerk and assistant clerk, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, decide to leave their job in Yonkers and have an adventure in New York City that will hopefully result in kissing a girl (something they’ve never come close to doing thus far). Ross Davis and Vikram Paul turn in nice performances as the sheltered but optimistic clerks who end up running into the hat shop of Irene Molloy and her young assistant Minnie Fay. As Irene Molloy, Elizabeth Castillo sings a mesmerizing version of Ribbons Down My Back, while Whitney Brandt stars as a bright and giggly Minnie Fay. They combine for a comical scene as the women try to get the clerks out of their hat shop without Vandergelder seeing them, using a big patriotic address that successfully distracts Vandergelder but is so catchy that Cornelius and Barnaby can’t help but join in. Elsewhere, Rachael Brubaker is Vandergelder’s niece Ermengarde who insists she’s plenty mature to marry her poor artist boyfriend Ambrose (Cody Jaeger), and then she amusingly cries and stomps about when she doesn’t get her way. Maggie Hohlfeld is a hoot in the brief scene as Dolly’s decidedly un-elegant friend Ernestina Money.

Performs November 9 - 11, 2007.

Rob Hopper
Executive Director
National Youth Theatre