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.

Alicia McCorvey plays the title role in Paragon Music Theatre's production of "Hello, Dolly!" Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

We’ll have a complete slide show for you Thursday, but, stealing a page from Todd Owyoung’s I Shoot Shows site, here’s a sneak peek at Paragon Music Theatre’s Hello, Dolly!

Ti Moune (Tai-Kristin Smedley) is oblvious to plans being made for her by Erzulie (Alicia Helm McCorvey), Papa Ge (Jason Thompson) and Asaka (Tamera Izlar). Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

After several summers of giving us musicals with songs we know by heart, SummerFest delivers a show with a story that will stay in our hearts.

And some of the tunes may stay with us too.

Like Hair (SummerFest 2008) and Jesus Christ Superstar (2004), writer Lynn Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty’s Once on This Island is a distinctly contemporary musical, and it scored a 1991 Tony Award nomination for best musical (Will Rogers Follies won). A lot of people who have seen the show love it, which means it should gain some new adherents this weekend as it closes out SummerFest at the Arboretum.

In some ways, Island seems ideally suited to the Arboretum venue. It is set on a Caribbean island and its story is intertwined with nature. The gods of earth (Tamera Izlar) and the ocean (Luther Lewis III) are co-conspirators in the story of Ti Moune (Tarynn Grundy as a girl and Tai-Kristin Smedley as an adult), a peasant girl orphaned in a flood whose love and innocence eventually conquers the cruelty and vapidity of racism.

Ti Moune is convinced she was saved in the flood for a purpose, and later comes to believe that is to save Daniel (Adam Fister), a rich boy injured in a car crash during another harrowing storm. Ti Moune’s love for Daniel is at the center of a bet between Papa Ge (Jason Thompson), the demon of death, and Erzulie (Alicia Helm McCorvey), the goddess of love, as to which one is stronger.

Death, “can stop a heart from beating, but not from loving,” Erzulie tells Papa Ge in a line you should pay attention to.

The strength in Margo Buchanan’s production is several of the performances and her often telling staging.

One of the best moments is when Daniel sings Some Girls to Ti Moune. All the while, on a platform above and behind them, Andrea (Taylor Eldred), the rich girl Daniel’s been promised to since childhood, is getting ready for the dance they will all attend. It’s visually as telling as the lyric, “Some girls you marry, and some girls you love.” Pay attention to that one, too.

Fister you’ll remember as Claude in Hair. Smedley is the first performer in the show who truly fills the Arboretum when she enters singing Waiting for Life. She provides the show with a sweet star to root for. Thompson as her nemisis, Papa Ge, is also a commanding presence in a his voice, laugh and lithe movement.

As Ti Moune’s adoptive mother, Julie-Ann Aguhob builds on her head turning performance at Grand Night for Singing in June, though she was one of several performers plagued by microphone problems Thursday night.

Despite the appropriateness of the outdoor setting, the show sometimes has trouble filling the Arboretum, in some cases due to the lightness of Flaherty’s touch. Some airy, transitional moments have trouble competing with the surroundings, such as the Arboretum’s location near two hosptials (with emergency rooms).

What does work really well in that atmosphere is Island’s format with storytellers relaying the tale in its immediacy and history of class conflict and island legend. Even if, at the back of the amphitheater, you miss some subtle moments between characters, you get the broad themes of nature and love overcoming the unnatural barriers people put between themselves.

No, not everything works in Once on This Island. But a lot does, and who doesn’t want a little island get away on a summer night?

SummerFest closes out its 2009 season with the musical Once on This Island by writer Lynn Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty. The musical tells the story of Ti Moune, a peasant girl in Haiti who believes the gods spared her life so she could save a rich boy, Daniel, and fall in love with him. The production is directed by Margo Buchanan. Performances are July 22-26 at the Arboretum on Alumni Drive. Photos by Rich Copley | staff.

Feature: UK Opera students spend summer exploring musical theater in Once on This Island.