It’s that time of year again — Newtown High School’s spring musical production of Hello, Dolly! will open on Thursday, March 13. Performances will be staged in the auditorium of the high school, 12 Berkshire Road, with evening performances at 7 pm Thursday through Saturday, March 13-15, and matinee performances at 2 pm Saturday and Sunday, March 15-16.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students and seniors, and are available for purchase online at nhsc.booktix.net.

Hello, Dolly! is a romantic comedy musical that follows the strong-willed widow Dolly Levi, who is as much of a matchmaker as she is a professional meddler. She tries to pair one of her clients, half-a-millionaire Horace Vandergelder, with the beautiful and intelligent milliner Irene Molloy. However, Levi eventually sets her sights on marrying him herself. Her scheming only gets more complicated when two of Vandergelder’s workers take the day off when they’re not supposed to, meet Molloy, and one of them ends up falling in love with her.

The show is being managed by NHS English teacher Theresa Talluto as director, NHS English teacher Wendy LaBarge as producer, and NHS English teacher Brian Tenney as technical director.

Talluto said they were chatting over the summer about going in the direction of having an old fashioned, feel-good musical to counterbalance the unrest and uncertainty in the world right now.

“And so we kind of thought that going in that direction was something that people would enjoy; that it’d be a classic, fun musical that people would reminisce about in some way,” Talluto explained.

That was apparent from the moment Hello, Dolly! was announced as the spring musical this year. Talluto said that students and staff members alike came up to her after the announcement gushing about how it’s their mother’s favorite musical or that they saw it when they were little. From that alone, Talluto knew it was something that a lot of people have a connection to.

Talluto that she initially almost shied away from it because she wondered about how it portrayed women. After reading it and listening to the lyrics, however, she realized that the heart of the story was about a woman taking charge of her life and making a decision to move forward.

When she saw it that way, Talluto said she knew it was the perfect match for their spring musical.

“The fact that she can take her life from a place she didn’t want it to stay anymore and move it to a place she really wanted it to be just kind of hit me really hard,” Talluto said.

The beloved musical brings iconic musical numbers and charismatic, old-school charm to the high school stage.

The Joy Of Theater

This production of Hello, Dolly! is the first show Tenney has done in several years. He said that the last shows he technically had any involvement in were the high school’s productions of Godspell and The Mystery of Edwin Drood back in 2021. He said his involvement for those shows was a little more tangential since they did very small sets for those shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tenney also noted he worked on NHS’s production of Pippin, which was going to be presented in March 2020. While that did not happen as originally planned due to the pandemic, Tenney said, they ultimately held a concert version of it on the football field that July.

Despite that, the cast and crew were not able to use their sets, lights, effects, or costumes for the concert. Instead, they had to go in and take down the set they built in the summer.

As for why he has returned now, Tenney said theater is something that has always been a point of joy and satisfaction for him, as he has done theater since he was a middle school student himself and all throughout high school and college.

“And so when this opportunity presented itself, I accepted it,” Tenney explained.

Working on Hello, Dolly! and directing the student crew to build the sets, Tenney said, has been really great. He added he has always loved working with the crew, and that it’s a great privilege to get to know students outside of the classroom setting.

Tenney said he is very proud of the work he does in the classroom and the relationships that he builds with students there, but that guiding a crew for theater production is “very different.”

People inherently get a different side of students when they’re teaching them how to operate a dangerous power saw, stack lumber, run lighting equipment, design a set, and more, he said.

“That’s all very different kinds of skills and sides of kids compared to what we get in the classroom, so it’s been very fulfilling and very gratifying, if at times a little exhausting,” Tenney said.

While Talluto and Tenney have both had previous experience working on shows in the district, this is LaBarge’s first time since she was in high school herself being involved in theater.

As the producer, she has a range of duties from making sure invoices are paid, making sure Tenney has the lumber that he needs, and organizing booking space in the building for rehearsals and crew building to advertising from the show and managing partnerships with local businesses, among others.

“Production is all of the other background moving parts that help allow the show to happen, which I didn’t know when I signed up for it, but it’s been a lot of fun and a good time,” LaBarge said.

LaBarge said it was also nice that she got to tap into her previous experiences to help with the show. She said she has a degree in photography in journalism, and that she worked in marketing before she returned to school to become a teacher.

It Takes A Village

What sets Newtown High School’s production of Hello, Dolly! apart from previous shows is that the students designed the set. Tenney said he sat in the room and answered whatever questions the students had, but they were the ones who took charge and “came up with everything.

“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Tenney said. “They designed it from concept all the way down to the really detailed, granular blueprints.”

Building a set is easier said than done, and NHS’s set for Hello, Dolly! is no exception. Not only is there the long bridge that spans from one part of the stage to the other, there is also the iconic Hello, Dolly! set of stairs at center stage, which will be on wheels for easy transportation. There will also be two escape stairs reused from old shows, according to NHS senior and co-construction head Lucia Rose St Lorenzo.

“It all makes it convenient to get on and off stage,” St Lorenzo explained. “So it’s a pain to end up building, but once it’s done and you get it moving, you just think, ‘I’m so happy I’m not carrying this right now.’”

NHS senior and construction head Cormac Elliott said the amount of work that has gone into Hello, Dolly! is a lot more than what people might think. He noted audiences will see a finished set when they arrive to see the show, but crew members are at the high school from the time the school day ends until 6 pm every single week and including weekends, whenever they get the chance. Paired with the time crunch from being students in high school, the time commitment can be a lot, Elliott said.

Nevertheless, he said he was extremely proud of the work that everyone has done up until this point, and he is excited for everyone to see the show later in March.

“Looking at the set the way it is now, it’s definitely a proud moment,” Elliott said. “It’s really come together from our vision that we had back in December.”

St Lorenzo said she was most looking forward to seeing run-throughs of the show and seeing set pieces after NHS senior and painting head Parker Mauri finishes painting them. For Mauri, they said they are most looking forward to seeing all the pieces of the show get finished for the big day.

While the construction crew is hard at work building the set in the auditorium, the cast is working just as hard rehearsing scenes and musical numbers in the cafetorium. NHS senior Mary Guion, who is one of four stage managers for the show, said she was so excited to see everyone take that classic, old school atmosphere of Hello, Dolly! and bring it to the school’s stage.

“It’s my senior show and I couldn’t be more excited,” Guion said. “It’s just been so much easier for me this year. I know what I’m doing now, and I’m just excited to see it all come together.”

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.