BWW Flashback: HELLO, DOLLY! Comes to Broadway (for the First Time) with Carol Channing!

The Shubert Theatre may be getting a fresh marquee this week, with Bernadette Peters' name in lights, but 54 years ago today, Dolly Gallagher Levi made her very first appearance on Broadway.

The original production of Hello, Dolly! opened on January 16, 1964 at the St. James Theatre, where it ran for almost seven years and 2844 performances. Produced by David Merrick, it won 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical (a record held for 37 years) and starred Carol Channing in the title role.

Below, watch as Channing performs the title song with the original company in 1965.

Directed by four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks and choreographed by Tony Award winner Warren Carlyle, Hello, Dolly! began performances on Broadway on March 15, 2017, and officially opened on Thursday, April 20, 2017.

This Hello, Dolly!, the first new production of the classic musical (based on Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker) to appear on Broadway since it opened more than fifty years ago, pays tribute to the work of its original director/ choreographer Gower Champion, which has been hailed both then and now as one of the greatest stagings in musical theater history.