Why This Dolly Will Never Go Away For Me

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: On a recent Sunday afternoon, I settled in to my seat in the upper balcony of the Shubert Theatre to watch Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly!. Over half a century earlier at age 10, I had attended my first Broadway show, Oliver!, in the same theatre, sitting in the same section. I have seen many a musical in the intervening years. Nowadays, I rarely attend revivals -- I'm old enough that they tend to be of shows I saw in their original productions, and I don't feel the new incarnations have much to offer me. But Hello, Dolly! is different.