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.

William Arnold, Henry Zahn, and Chris Duncan perform Greased Lightning, during the the second annual Paragon Music Theatre Cabaret at Natasha's Bistro & Bar. Photos by Mark Cornelison | Herald-Leader staff.

Most of us who follow musicals have had those wow moments, where we see a song we’ve known for years in the context of the show it’s from and get what it’s all about.

One of the secrets to the success of Paragon Music Theatre’s Summer Cabaret at Natasha’s Bistro & Bar is that it would leave you with few of those wow moments for the tunes it presents. Under Robyn Peterman-Zahn’s direction, the 90-minute show-tune revue delivers plenty of mini-dramas and comedies representing 17 different shows, and it has plenty of wow moments of its own.

Wow moments like:

■ Javier Pereira nailing Frankie Valli’s “I love you baby!” in Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You from Jersey Boys.

Jan Hooker performs Taylor, the Latte Boy.

■ Jan Hooker’s precious rendition of Kristin Chenoweth’s Taylor, the Latte Boy.

■ Carmen Geraci leading a conniving take on Annie’s Easy Street.

■ Katie Owen’s Meadowlark with a fluttery dance by Haley Fish.

■ A stirring five-song distillation of Les Miserables, a show we have yet to see here in Lexington, though you could have left Natasha’s feeling like you had.

In a market that’s coming dangerously close to being oversaturated with cabarets and show-tune revues - Grand Night for Singing, the Lexington Singers pops concerts, and the proposed Actors Guild of Lexington cabarets - Paragon’s offering makes a clear case for itself both to be seen as this edition continues Aug. 17 to 19 at Natasha’s and when the cabaret returns in the winter. Paragon will reconstitute its schedule this coming season to present Hello, Dolly! at the Lexington Opera House from Oct. 22 to 25, the cabarets in the winter and The Sound of Music at the Opera House next summer.

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Ryan Shirar and Robyn Peterman-Zahn during rehearsals for "The King and I." Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

Paragon Music Theatre served up a surprise hit with its summer cabaret programs at Natasha’s Bistro & Bar last year, so they are back for another round.

“We always appreciate the opportunity to feature people in ways that we simply cannot do during our mainstage productions,” says Ryan Shirar, music director of Paragon.

Last year’s cabaret was sort of a soft debut for the theater’s new stage director, Robyn Peterman-Zahn, who made a big statement of a main stage debut in the spring with The King and I.

Advertisements for the event promise a cast of 40 — a number that could make the restaurant feel fairly full — singing show tunes. Several e-mails, Facebook messages, etc., have highlighted children in this show as particularly adorable.

Performances are at 8 p.m. tonight (Aug. 3), Tuesday and Aug. 17 and 18. This year, and the programs will be the same. Seating and dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. and showtime is at 8. There will be a $10 cover for the show added to dinner bills. Call (859) 259-2754 for reservations.

Here’s our slide show of Paragon Music Theatre’s production of The King and I. Mouse over the bottom of the slide show to get controls. Click on the little comment cloud to the left to activate captions. If you click on a photo, it will take you to a larger version of it at Picasa, and you can click the link at the bottom left of the slide show window for a larger version of the whole show.

The directing debut from a theater’s new artistic director is always an exciting event, and that’s what we get this weekend with Paragon Music Theatre’s production of The King and I. Robyn Peterman-Zahn makes her debut stage directing a Lexington Opera House production for the company — she did direct some cabaret shows at Natasha’s Bistro last summer — with this production running April 23 through April 26. Please enjoy our slideshow, above, and click here to read more about Peterman-Zahn, a Lexington native and professional actor who also is the daughter of clothier John Peterman and wife of actor Steve Zahn.