HELLO DOLLY Opens WPA Season In Greensburg

Westmoreland Performing Art's Professional Theatre Company will present the Jerry Herman Musical Theatre Classic "Hello Dolly" September 22-24 at WCCC's Science Hall Theatre at it's Youngwood campus.

The show features long-time local favorite Renata Marino as the irrepressible matchmaker Dolly Levi, Pittsburgh's David Cabot as her eventual match Horace Vandergelder, Kevin O'Leary and Anthony Marino as his clerks Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, Latrobe's Nicole Paluzzi as Irene Molloy and Greensburg's Alex Podolinski as the love-struck Ambrose Kemper.

Also featured in the cast are WPA Students Piper Anke (Derry) and Laura Stanish (Connellsville) double cast as Minnie Fay, and Avery Federico (Latrobe), Riley Galloway (Irwin) and Laura Hermann (Charleroi) as Horace's forlorn niece Ermengarde.

WPA Artistic Director Tony Marino directs with Latrobe's Cynthia Baltzer as the musical director.

Hello, Dolly! is a 1964 musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955. The musical follows the story of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. The show has become one of the most enduring musical theater hits, with four Broadway revivals and international success. It was also made into the 1969 film Hello Dolly! by 20th Century Fox, which won three Academy Awards

Renata Marino on what it's like to take on such an iconic character: "The beauty of the role is that it's so rich and so fun that you can find something in every scene to connect with as an actor. Plus her relationship with every character is written so well, and then you have the music and what she get to do there, and it becomes an embarrassment of riches for an actor. Suffice to say it has been, and is, one of my dream roles!"

Tickets for the show are being sold through the Palace Theatre Box office and can be purchased by going through their website at the link below or by calling them at 724.836.8000.

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