Bootleg Betty Video: Bette Midler – Hello Dolly (Complete) By Dylan Delmonico May 7, 2026
Bette Midler’s Hello, Dolly! was a lavish, joy-bomb Broadway revival (2017–2018) that earned her a Tony Award and re-cemented the show as a classic of musical comedy.
What the Revival Was The 2017 Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! opened at the Shubert Theatre on April 20, 2017, starring Bette Midler as Dolly Gallagher Levi. It was the first major Broadway revival in over 20 years and paid tribute to the original Gower Champion staging while giving it a fresh, high-gloss energy.
Why It Mattered
Cast: David Hyde Pierce (Horace), Gavin Creel (Cornelius, Tony winner), Kate Baldwin (Irene), plus a stacked ensemble.
Huge hit: 34 previews, 550 performances, closing August 25, 2018.
Awards: Won 4 Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical and Best Actress in a Musical for Midler.
What Made Midler’s Dolly Special Midler’s Dolly was grand, mischievous, warm, and deeply comic—a return to the big, brassy, vaudeville-infused persona she built her career on. Critics and audiences described her performance as a “once-in-a-generation star turn.” Her entrance in the Harmonia Gardens sequence routinely stopped the show.
The Story (in brief) Dolly Levi, a widowed matchmaker, heads to Yonkers to arrange a marriage for the cranky half. millionaire Horace Vandergelder—while secretly planning to marry him herself. Along the way she engineers romances for Cornelius, Barnaby, Irene, and Minnie, all culminating in a joyful, full company finale.
