Latest news with #ThorntonWilder
New York Times
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
In ‘The Matchmaker,' Meet Dolly Levi Before She Was ‘Dolly!'
Though Thornton Wilder's rarely performed play 'The Matchmaker' is not a musical, it's nevertheless a great pleasure for musical theater lovers. That's only partly because so much of its dialogue sounds unexpectedly familiar if you know 'Hello, Dolly!' — the 1964 blockbuster built on its bones. Lines that the songwriter Jerry Herman turned into lyrics, barely having to alter a word, keep popping up in Wilder's script like old friends at a crowded party. 'I am a woman who arranges things,' says Dolly Levi, the good-hearted widow who's up in everyone's business. 'Go and get your Sunday clothes on,' says Cornelius Hackl, the 38-year-old Yonkers clerk who devises a plan for adventure in New York City. 'This summer we'll be wearing ribbons down our backs,' says Irene Molloy, the milliner he falls in love with there. But even beyond the spark of recognition that has you humming along with the script, 'The Matchmaker,' now enjoying a fine revival at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison, N.Y., is a musical lover's delight, besotted with song. Wilder frequently calls for his characters to sing and dance to popular favorites of the period, roughly the 1880s. 'The Sidewalks of New York,' the 'Les Patineurs' waltz and others decorate and turn the plot while also dramatizing the play's central theme: the necessity of engaging in the culture of one's time. This production, directed with high spirits by Davis McCallum, ups the musical ante. Beneath the festival's open-sided tent in a dell on the grounds of a former golf course, a three-piece band (fiddle, banjo, accordion) plays on a platform above the action. The Hudson Valley setting is neatly invoked at the start by a poem Wilder wrote for 'The Merchant of Yonkers' — a 'Matchmaker' predecessor — set charmingly to music by Alex Bechtel. 'The Map of New York,' another Bechtel song, is the aural equivalent of sepia rotogravure. But the play is hardly old-fashioned — or to put it another way, it's eternal. (Wilder, the author of 'Our Town,' is always interested in the eternities.) No surprise there; the story has a provenance going back via England and Germany to the Greeks and Romans. Dolly (Nance Williamson, looking a bit like Bette Midler) is a jollier version of the parasite character of ancient comedy, who through flattery and persistence attains a place at the rich man's table. In this case, the rich man is Horace Vandergelder (Kurt Rhoads), a Yonkers merchant whose half-million dollars, hoarded and fondled but otherwise never touched, do nothing for the world. Though Dolly finagles to land Vandergelder and cure his miserliness, you understand from the start that she is not meddling merely for her own gain. She also seeks to match the impoverished Cornelius (Carl Howell) to the widowed Irene (Helen Cespedes), and to marry Vandergelder's niece (Anvita Gattani) to a painter (Blaize Adler-Ivanbrook) whom the blowhard merchant derides as unpromising. ('You artists produce something nobody needs at any time,' he thunders.) If Dolly must bend the truth to reach these ends — she invents a young woman named Ernestina Simple, then makes her disappear opportunely — she does so in part, as she explains with good cheer, because life should be exciting and people must live in it. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Epoch Times
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
‘Our Town': The Nearly Unbearable Beauty of Life
NR | 1h 30m | Drama | 1940 Human life is meaningful only when it's relational. Only by treasuring life's moments in togetherness do birth, aging, and death become worthwhile. That's the point of director Sam Wood's film, 'Our Town' (1940), inspired by Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.
Chicago Tribune
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Naperville News Digest: Naper Settlement's walking tours of Naperville resume this month; KidsMatter Teen Philanthropy Initiative plans trivia event
Naper Settlement's walking tours of Naperville resume this month Three different types of informative walking tours are returning to Naper Settlement on select Thursdays through Sept. 18. Tour options include the Origins of Naperville, Downtown Naperville Architecture and Naperville Cemetery tour. Tours begin at 5:30 p.m. Thursdays throughout the spring and summer and cost $15 per person. Unless noted otherwise, the tours will start at the settlement's main entrance at 523 S. Webster St. and cover about two miles. In the Origins of Naperville tour, residents can learn about Naperville's founding and the generosity of Caroline Martin Mitchell. The tour takes place on the west side of downtown Naperville. The architecture tour spotlights downtown Naperville architecture from the 1800s to today, and the cemetery tour focuses on stories of pioneers, trailblazers and everyday heroes who once lived in Naperville. Preregistration is required for all tours, and ticket sales close at 4 p.m. on the day of the tour. No tickets will be sold at the door. For more information, go to College of DuPage to stage classic play 'Our Town' April 10-19 The Pulitzer Prize-winning play 'Our Town' by Thornton Wilder will be presented April 10-19 at the College of DuPage's Playhouse Theater at the McAninch Arts Center, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn. Performances will be held at 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, April 10-12 and April 17-19, and at 3 p.m. Sundays, April 13 and 19. A pre-show discussion with the director and designers will take place at 6:45 p.m. Thursday, April 10. A post-show discussion with the director and actors will take place after the Friday, April 18, performance. The show takes place in the fictional town of Grover's Corners and follows the relationship of George and Emily, a young couple in love. Tickets are $14 for students and seniors and $16 for adults. They can be purchased at or by calling 630-942-4000. KidsMatter Teen Philanthropy Initiative plans trivia event High school seniors who are part of the KidsMatter Teen Philanthropy Initiative will host 'Seas the Trivia,' a beach-themed trivia event, from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 13, at the Alfred Rubin Riverwalk Community Center, 305 Jackson Ave., Naperville. Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli and three former NFL players will be asking questions in such categories as Naperville fun facts, pop culture, sports, history and world events. There also will be guess-the-song and guess-the-logo categories. A prize will be presented to the winner. Tickets are $10 for students and $20 for adults in advance. Tickets are $25 for adults at the door. Participants of the Teen Philanthropy Initiative have been involved in the two-year program learning about the pillars of philanthropy including giving, fundraising and strategic volunteering. Seniors develop and execute a campaign to support the program and raise funds for next year, the release said.
