David Hyde Pierce Will Join Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! At The Schubert Theatre

Playbill
David Hyde Pierce Will Join Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly!
BY ANDREW GANS
MAY 17, 2016

The Broadway revival will play the Shubert Theatre.

Tony and Emmy winner David Hyde Pierce ( Curtains, Frasier) will join Bette Midler in the forthcoming Broadway revival of the blockbuster 1964 musicalHello, Dolly!

Hyde Pierce will be Horace Vandergelder opposite Midler’s Dolly Gallagher Levi. The production will play the Shubert Theatre, current home of the Tony-winning Mailda the Musical, which will play its final performance at the Broadway venue January 1, 2017.

The casting news was revealed via new artwork for the eagerly awaited production.

As previously reported, four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks will direct, and Tony winner Warren Carlyle will choreograph the production, which will begin Broadway previews March 13, 2017, and open April 20.

The title role, one of the greatest leading lady roles in musical theatre, was written for Ethel Merman, but ultimately originated by Carol Channing, who won the Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical for the role, and also starred in the most recent Broadway revival of the musical in 1995. During its original run the role was played by Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Mary Martin, Phyllis Diller, Bibi Osterwald, Thelma Carpenter, Pearl Bailey and, at last, Merman.

Scott Rudin produces. The show has a book by Michael Stewart, based on The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder. It won a then-record ten Tony Awards in 1964, including Best Musical, and ran 2,844 performances making it briefly the longest running musical in Broadway history.