Copious Notes

Horace Vandergelder (Greg Wilson, center in yellow shirt) and the men at his Hay and Feed store sing "It Takes A Woman." Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

If you can walk out of Hello, Dolly! saying, “That was fun,” then mission accomplished.

This is not one of those musicals that are supposed to help you realize deeper truths about life and the human condition or to leave you enraptured by compelling drama. Dolly is a little confection that says we take life a bit too seriously.

And Paragon Music Theatre has accomplished the mission of offering a fun evening with its production of the Jerry Herman-Michael Stewart musical, which opened Thursday and runs through Sunday at the Lexington Opera House.

Director Robyn Peterman-Zahn has created a traditional rendition of the show with some impressive set pieces designed by Josh Hurley and backdrops designed by Liz Weyer.

Much of the fun of this evening can be attributed to the leading actors and the men of the ensemble.

Alicia Helm McCorvey as Dolly makes the part her own.

Alicia Helm McCorvey is not your Dolly Levi from Central Casting. If your deep desire is an idiosyncratic performance along the lines of Carol Channing or Barbra Streisand, this is not that. Then again, I don’t know who would be the Dolly from Central Casting in Lexington.

When you don’t have that obvious option, the thing to do is give the role to a terrific performer and let her make it her own, which is what McCorvey does.

Her Dolly is wistful, fanciful and maternal. McCorvey’s operatic voice also soars higher than traditional Dollys, presumably with some custom orchestration by music director Ryan Shirar. McCorvey has an instrument that’s different from that of anyone else on stage, but that’s fine, because Dolly is set apart from the rest of the characters.

McCorvey’s voice seemed to provide a particular challenge in the sound department: She frequently overpowered the microphone. If she is going to be miked, she needs to be more smoothly mixed with the other voices.

And there are other great voices on stage. With Dolly, Paragon continues a trend of making discoveries, principally Greg Wilson as Horace Vandergelder, Rebecca Rudd as Irene Molloy and Evan Pulliam as Barnaby Tucker.

Wilson sparks the show to life when leading the men in the ensemble in It Takes a Woman. He naturally steps to the front of the stage and engages the audience, and that is essential to soften Horace’s rough exterior.

Rudd was luminous in her rendition of Ribbons Down My Back. And Pulliam was a bolt of energy, elevating Barnaby above the role of simple sidekick.

This brings up one frustration: the lack of cast biographies in the program. I really wanted to know more about each of these new faces.

The familiar names of Jan Hooker and Adam Richard Fister rounded out the lead ensemble, and whenever any combination of that group was on stage, the show was fine.

It also was in great shape with the men, in Horace’s shop in Act I and as the staff of the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant in Act II. They had loads of personality and were a collective triple threat. It was in the large ensemble scenes that some of the air came out of the show. The movement felt confused, but the real letdown was a lack of vocal power, particularly in the opening number, Call on Dolly. The Act I closer defied that problem, again with a lot of help from the principals.

And again, the overall sensation was fun, which is exactly what a production of Hello, Dolly! should be.

More Dolly:

• Adam Richard Fister is an extrovert on stage only.
• Hello, Dolly! slide show.

As promised, here’s the slideshow from the first act of Paragon Music Theatre’s Hello, Dolly! Oct. 22-25 at the Lexington Opera House.

Feature story: Adam Richard Fister has become a staple of Lexington musical theater.

VERSAILLES — Complete outsiders might drive into this town of 7,818 thinking it’s a really cute place, and it’s awfully sweet they’re putting up a production of Oklahoma at the local theater.

Evan Sullivan as Curly and Jessie Rose Pennington as Laurey in 'Oklahoma.' Photo courtesy of The Woodford Theatre.

Then they would settle into their seats and soon have to sweep their jaws off the floor when the lights come up on a morning sky so perfectly pink you’d think there wasn’t a back wall on the stage, and the actors are not only singing with these gorgeous voices but catching every nuance in Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein III’s show.

Now, if you’ve been following the steady evolution of The Woodford Theatre (until recently the Woodford County Theatrical Arts Association) under Beth Kirchner’s direction, you come expecting a much higher quality production than most people would presume a small town theater would put up. But that doesn’t mean Oklahoma isn’t a pleasant surprise, even to the initiated.

Like Lexington’s Paragon Music Theatre a few weeks ago with The King and I, Woodford Theatre has really outdone itself with this R&H production and taken its game to a new level. You have to wonder how Central Kentucky went nearly half a decade with no one regularly presenting musical theater, and now these triumphant productions are busting out all over.

It certainly helps to have Evan Sullivan and Jessie Rose Pennington, quickly becoming the leading man and woman of Lexington-area musical theater, in the leads.

Sullivan, a Woodford Theatre veteran, looks as comfortable in his chaps and cowboy hat playing Curly as he did in a suit and tie as Harold Hill last spring in Paragon’s Music Man. He’s a consummate actor with the right dose of charm for a musical theater leading man. And Pennington is a perfect foil for Sullivan playing Laurey, just as she was playing Marian in Music Man. Their first few scenes have a contentious chemistry that we can all see through, and it quickly thaws.

But they are just part of the show, and Kirchner has assembled a deep cast with some reliable standbys such as Melissa Rae Wilkeson as Aunt Eller. She shows empathetic grit and takes over several numbers such as The Farmer and the Cowman, which at one point she conducts with a pistol in her hand. Kirchner also has winners in the supporting couple of Adam Richard Fister as Will Parker and Sydney Steele, already a stage veteran in her junior year of high school, as Ado Annie. We must also give a shout out to Wes Nelson in the scene-stealing-special role of Ali Hakim, the traveling salesman who is Will’s rival for Annie’s affections, at least in Annie’s mind.

But the casting choice that really demonstrates this show’s depth is Brian Douglas Barker as Jud.

You can see a lot of community theater R&H productions that play the shows as puttin’ on the hits. But there is a real strong sense of pathos and melancholy in Barker’s performance that puts the theater in this musical theater production. Pennington’s reaction to him is also a key to this, as there is palpable fear in her voice and body the first time she talks about Jud.

Choreographer Jenny Fitzpatrick gets amazing dance work out of the cast, particularly in the ballet that closes Act I and that Farmer and the Cowman number. And Russell Mendez’s set and Todd Pickett’s lighting design finish this show’s professional sheen.

This is a production that could play towns many, many times Versailles’ size. And if you aren’t familiar with this troupe, maybe it’s time to get acquainted. It’s worth the drive.