Hello, Dolly!

On January 16, 1964, the musical Hello, Dolly! opened on Broadway and ran for a total of 2,844 performances. Produced by David Merrick, with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, the musical was based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955.

Hello, Dolly! won a record 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, a record held for 35 years. The show album Hello, Dolly! An Original Cast Recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. The show has become one of the most enduring musical theatre hits, enjoying three Broadway revivals and international success. It was also made into a 1969 film that was nominated for seven Academy Awards.

The plot of Hello, Dolly! originated in an 1835 English play, A Day Well Spent by John Oxenford, which Johann Nestroy adapted into the farce Einen Jux will er sich machen. Wilder adapted Nestroy's play into his 1938 farcical play, The Merchant of Yonkers, a flop, which he revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955, expanding the role of Dolly, played by Ruth Gordon. The Matchmaker became a hit and was much revived and made into a 1958 film of the same name starring Shirley Booth. The story of a meddlesome widow who strives to bring romance to several couples and herself in a big city restaurant also features prominently in the 1891 hit musical A Trip to Chinatown.

The role of Dolly Levi in the musical was originally written for Ethel Merman, but Merman turned it down, as did Mary Martin (although each eventually played it). Merrick then auditioned Nancy Walker. Eventually, he hired Carol Channing, who then created in Dolly her signature role. Director Gower Champion was not the producer's first choice, as Hal Prince and others (among them Jerome Robbins and Joe Layton) all turned down the job of directing the musical.

Hello, Dolly! had rocky out-of-town tryouts in Detroit and Washington, D.C. After receiving the reviews, the creators made major changes to the script and score, including the addition of the song, "Before the Parade Passes By". The show was originally entitled Dolly, A Damned Exasperating Woman and Call on Dolly but Merrick changed the title immediately upon hearing Louis Armstrong's version of "Hello, Dolly". The show became one of the most iconic Broadway shows of its era, the latter half of the 1960s, running for 2,844 performances, and was for a time the longest-running musical in Broadway history. During that decade, ten "blockbuster" musicals played over 1,000 performances and three played over 2,000, helping to redefine "success" for the Broadway musical genre.

-