Hello, Dolly, Well, hello, Dolly It's so nice to have you back where you belong -
There's something particularly apropos about the title song in this year's Royal City Musical Theatre production of Hello, Dolly!
What with the Dolly in question being Colleen Winton, a fourth-generation New Westminsterite who took her first steps into the spotlight at the Massey Theatre as a New Westminster Secondary student, it couldn't be more fitting.
It's been 18 years since Winton appeared in a Royal City Musical Theatre production.
That time, she was a young mom with a six-month-old and a four-year-old at home, starring as U.S. Navy nurse Nellie Forbush in South Pacific.
Playing opposite her, as the French plantation owner Emile de Becque, was another Royal City actor, David Adams.
Everything has come full circle for 2012, as Winton and Adams now star together as the scheming matchmaker Dolly Levi and the wealthy target of her schemes, Horace Vandergelder.
Oh, and that four-year-old child of Winton's? He's Sayer Roberts, at the beginning of his own career as a professional actor and onstage costarring as Horace's clerk, Barnaby Tucker.
"It is doubly lovely to be back home," Winton says, taking a break from her busy rehearsal schedule to chat about the upcoming production.
With Hello, Dolly! set to open on April 12, the production is rapidly taking shape as the kind of show Royal City Musical Theatre does best: big, colourful, fun and full of great song and dance numbers. With more than 40 cast members, the show includes a dance ensemble, a singing ensemble and a kids' chorus alongside the leads.
"It's a hard show to do small," Winton says with a laugh.
She notes there are numbers - like the well-known Waiters' Gallop - that demand a big cast and larger-than-life treatment, and that's just what director-choreographer Valerie Easton has provided.
"She certainly has done it again," Winton says.
Winton laughingly admits she watches the young dance ensemble with awe at rehearsals.
"I couldn't do the dancing," she says. "Oh my goodness, the energy!"
Adams is quick to agree.
"The energy these young people bring to the work is really inspiring," he says. "They just come with such wide-eyed enthusiasm. I see these kids just giving their all. - That kind of exuberance is so fantastic to be around."
As veteran professionals in a cast that includes kids, aspiring young actors just starting their own careers and a mix of community members of various levels of experience, both Winton and Adams realize they're serving as role models at rehearsals.
"I know I have to set a bit of an example," Adams says. "I'm pleased to do that."
He notes that's one of the things he loves about Royal City Musical Theatre - the fact that it provides opportunities for the kind of mentoring that's all too often lost these days.
"It's really important to be able to pass these things on to the next generation."
For the young performers in the cast, the chance to work alongside Winton and Roberts is one of the highlights of the production.
"It's wonderful," says Angela King, a 19-year-old member of the dance ensemble who's a Simon Fraser University student and part-time teacher at Douglas Ballet Academy. "You learn so much just from watching Colleen and David perform. They're such nice people, and super-sweet. Being able to watch them, from what they started with to the final product, is just amazing."
Damon Jang, 26, who's just starting out on his own theatre career, says it's a treat to be part of the dance ensemble and to work with such a variety of people.
He points out that it's not often you get to work with such a mix of performers, from children to veteran professionals.
"Working with Colleen and David and some of the more experienced professionals, and working with the up-and-coming artists - it's a nice balance," he says.
Adams is quick to say that the learning isn't a one-way street.
"Working professionals and community players and students can learn a lot from each other," he says. "I get just as much as I am able to give."
Adams and Winton are also pleased to have a chance to star in one of the classics of musical theatre.
Winton says that, while she loves new musical theatre works too, there's something special about being in a show that's so familiar to so many.
"There is something kind of appealing, something satisfying about knowing the tunes, about going out humming," she says. "I'm sure I'll see people singing along."
Adams adds that the musical - based on Thornton Wilder's play The Matchmaker - is one of those that has become a classic for a reason.
"This one is really well-constructed - the way it moves, the kind of songs, the way it tells the story through the music," he says. "You can see why it's a classic. It's a timeless piece."
And, he adds, there's also a great deal of humanity in the show.
He's enjoying playing Horace - who's rather a cantankerous and, at least at first, not entirely likeable sort - and in finding the softer, more human sides of his character.
Likewise with Winton, who notes that Easton has encouraged her to find the vulnerable side of Dolly.
"She wants people to be able to see underneath the public side of both Dolly and Horace - and understand what makes them tick," Winton says, noting both characters have suffered the loss of a spouse. "They're both doing their best."
The show's multiple love stories are one of the things that makes it so appealing, Winton points out - and it doesn't hurt that much of Thornton Wilder's original dialogue is still alive in the musical version.
Add in impressive sets designed by Omanie Elias and stunning costumes by local designer Chris Sinosich, and it all amounts of a full package that Winton says should appeal to people of all ages.
She has only one warning: the play is only onstage for two-and-a-half weeks, from April 12 to 28.
"It's going to be here and gone," she says. "People should make plans to see it and get their tickets soon. Act fast!"
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