Hello Dolly

Hello Dolly is an internationally acclaimed and accredited American musical. The Broadway musical is based on author Thornton Wilder’s book “The Merchant of Yonkers”, which was published in 1938. The book was later renamed in 1955 by Wilder to the simpler title “The Matchmaker”. After extensive work helping in the production and writing of “Bye Bye birdy”, author Michael Stewart began a new publication. He began to write the book and script for a new production called “Hello Dolly”. Jerry Herman took on the music and lyrics of the play together with singer and actress Carol Channing, and created one of the most successful musicals in Broadway history and was released in 1964.

The success of Hello Dolly

“Hello Dolly” has received vast recognition worldwide and has become an enduring classic being inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. The original production was performed at a record for the era 2,844 times on Broadway. The musical also won the most Tony’s that year running away with 10 awards. This was a new record for the Tony’s, and spent 37 years unbroken. However, the success didn’t stop from there! In 1969 the musical was made into a film and was released in theaters. That year, the film was nominated 7 times at the Academy Awards. Since its original inception, the play has been revived 3 times.

The success of the score

Most notably, the music of Hello Dolly helped largely in the success of the Broadway musical in the 1960’s. The original score was sung by Carol Channing who also performed as Dolly Gallagher Levi in the original Broadway cast in 1964. The score has deeper roots however. In December of 1963, Louis Armstrong made a demonstration recording to help publish the score and promote the Broadway musical. Just a few weeks later, Hello Dolly was performed for the first time at the St. James Theater in New York and quickly exploded with rave reviews and praise from the musical theater community. With the success of the musical, Kapp records released Louis Armstrong’s publishing demo commercially. Within a few weeks, Louis Armstrong’s version of “Hello Dolly” topped the Billboard Hot 100 list at number 1. The song had ended “The Beatles” 14 week stint of consecutively ranking the number 1, 2, and 3 spot of the Billboard Hot 100 list. The song became Louis Armstrong’s biggest hit and his Album titled “Hello Dolly” went Gold that year. The song won the Grammy for “Song of the Year” and Louis Armstrong picked up a Grammy for “Best vocal male performance”.

Overall, the success of Hello Dolly is truly extraordinary on all levels of Broadway musicals and American culture. It is still being performed all across the world. If you are you interested in watching the play, you can watch Hello Dolly at the Arizona Broadway Theatre until February 17th and witness a true American classic.

Here are a few more production photos from Hello Dolly.
Performed at the Arizona Broadway Theatre.

Photo Credits

All Photos Courtesy Of Arizona Broadway Theatre – All Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio

Lacey Chic
Lacey Chic was born and raised in Wisconsin. After being offered a job a large internet marketing firm, she then moved to Phoenix where she’s lived for 4 years. Lacey has worked in marketing for over 5 years and has dealt with many large brands for SEO, PPC, blogging, social media, content writing, and more. Having an online presence is key for any company to become successful.

Blog: PTS Multimedia Blog

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