Beginning June 13, 2017, Tuesday evening audiences at the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! will see Tony Award-winning actress Donna Murphy in the role of Dolly Gallagher Levi.
Bette Midler, the show’s above-the-title star, will play seven performances per week, with Murphy stepping in for the eighth performance. Murphy, a Tony Award winner for Passion and The King and I, will also take on the role during Midler’s vacations, which have not been announced. The Huffington Post broke the news.
"My husband Shawn, who was my partner for 38 years and father of my child and my stepchildren, passed away in March," Murphy told The Huffington Post. “It’s really been several years now that circumstances have been such that my career choices have been determined by the particular needs of my family.
“If somebody called me today and said are you interested in doing Hello, Dolly! on Broadway—I’m saying if Bette was not doing it, and it was a new production—I would think what a fantastic show! but I would have to stop and say I don’t know that I can do that. Because my foremost responsibility right now is to my eleven-year-old daughter, figuring out how to be physically and emotionally present for her. Obviously my desire is to do what I love, which is to work as a stage actress. But being gone five to six nights a week, now, would be a really tough thing for Darmia. So I know that I couldn’t in good conscience make that choice for us.
“This is the perfect job for me at this point, because it allows me to do what is most important in terms of my daughter and in terms of work. And how amazing to be able to actually do it in the theatre, which is a kind of home for me and which I’ve missed greatly! So I’m really excited and thrilled about every element of it. I’m not saying that I’m never going to do eight shows again. I’m just saying that I’ll only do it when its right for my daughter and myself.”
Midler will be joined by David Hyde Pierce as Horace Vandergelder in the revival that will begin Broadway previews March 15, 2017, and open April 20 at the Shubert Theatre. It is directed by Jerry Zaks.
The cast also features two-time Tony Award nominee Gavin Creel (Cornelius Hackl), Tony Award nominee Kate Baldwin (Irene Molloy), Taylor Trensch (Barnaby Tucker), Will Burton (Ambrose Kemper), Melanie Moore (Ermengarde), Tony Award nominee Jennifer Simard (Ernestina), and an ensemble of 27: Cameron Adams, Phillip Attmore, Giuseppe Bausilio, Justin Bowen, Elizabeth Earley, Taeler Elyse Cyrus, Leslie Donna Flesner, Jenifer Foote, Jessica Lee Goldyn, Blake Hammond, Stephen Hanna, Michael Hartung, Robert Hartwell, Amanda LaMotte, Analisa Leaming, Jess LeProtto, Ian Liberto, Kevin Ligon, Nathan Madden, Michael McCormick, Linda Mugleston, Hayley Podschun, Jessica Sheridan, Michaeljon Slinger, Christian Dante White, Branch Woodman, Ryan Worsing, and Richard Riaz Yoder.
