Interview: Aimee Doherty says HELLO, DOLLY! in Her First Jerry Herman Musical

Classic American theater composers like Leonard Bernstein, John Kander, and Stephen Sondheim have been good to Aimee Doherty – giving her a wide range of characters to play and songs to sing. She has returned the favor by giving standout performances in their musicals that have made her one of the leading lights on greater Boston’s stages.

And while Doherty has appeared in no fewer than nine Sondheim shows, she’s just now doing her first Jerry Herman musical. And she’s starting at the top, playing Dolly Gallagher Levi in “Hello, Dolly!” running at Lyric Stage Boston through June 22.

The original Broadway production – with book by Michael Stewart based on Thornton Wilder’s “The Merchant of Yonkers,” later retitled “The Matchmaker” – starring Carol Channing opened at the St. James Theatre in 1964, winning 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical. It ran through 1970, with Channing replaced first by Ginger Rogers and then Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Pearl Bailey, Phyllis Diller, and Ethel Merman, for whom the musical had originally been written. Mary Martin took out the show’s first national tour and was followed by Ginger Rogers, who headlined the tour at Boston’s Shubert Theatre in 1968.

Since 1975, there have been numerous revivals of the musical comedy, often with Channing. The most recent revival, starring Bette Midler and later Bernadette Peters, opened at New York’s Shubert Theatre in April 2017.  Betty Buckley headlined the national tour that followed, playing Citizens Opera House in August 2019, and Carolee Carmello starred in the second leg of that tour.

In the Lyric Stage Boston production, directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent, Doherty is making the role all her own. The in-demand performer – who was seen last season in “Thirst” at Lyric Stage and also SpeakEasy Stage Company’s  “A Man of No Importance” – has won four Elliot Norton Awards for Best Actress in a Musical, for Wheelock Family Theatre’s “Hairspray,” Lyric Stage Company’s “On the Town” and “Into the Woods,” and SpeakEasy Stage Company’s “Far from Heaven.” She has also won three IRNE awards, for SpeakEasy Stage’s “Nine,” Moonbox Productions’ “Cabaret,” and the Huntington’s “Merrily We Roll Along.”

A UMass Amherst graduate – who became a professional actress after 16 years as an environmental scientist – Doherty makes her home in Walpole with husband and fellow actor Jeff Mahoney. By telephone recently between a matinee and evening performance, Doherty discussed “Hello, Dolly!” and more.

When did you first become aware of “Hello, Dolly!”?

My mother passed away when I was very young and I inherited her record collection which included the original cast album of “Hello, Dolly!” with Carol Channing. That’s when I first fell in love with Jerry Herman’s music. When I was a teenager, I saw the movie version with Barbra Streisand, and a few years ago I saw Betty Buckley in it at the Opera House. I was seated in the second balcony, though, so I’m not sure I can say I really saw that show. I could hear it, however, and it was wonderful, so full of joy and happiness.

Besides this one, what other shows turned you on to Herman?

I first got to know his music through cast albums, of course, but when I was eight, and my sister Jean was five, my dad took us to see “La Cage aux Folles” at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine. When Les Cagelles came on stage at the opening, singing “We Are What We Are,” and dropped their voices two octaves, I was blown away. They were the first drag queens I’d ever seen and I thought they were fantastic.

 What made this the time for you to do this show?

I really didn’t think I would be playing Dolly now, but I knew I wanted to do the role in the future. When I heard that Lyric was planning to do this production, though, I immediately became interested. I’ve never reached out to a director before in my entire career so I don’t know what came over me, but I contacted Maurice.

I mentioned the Irene Molloy role to him, but he said he wanted to see what I could do with Dolly instead. Maurice asked me to prepare “Before the Parade Passes By,” and the Harmonia Gardens dinner scene where Dolly is double-talking Horace Vandergelder.  I kept thinking this was all too soon and that Dolly would be in my future. Maurice was persuasive, though, and I’m delighted to be playing Dolly now.

What do you like best about the character?

I like everything about Dolly. She's the smartest person in the room and she's also funny and very compassionate. She looks out for other people. She's a matchmaker, so she's not giving everyone exactly what they're asking for, but she's giving them exactly what they need. And she does it with a lot of wit and heart and also real depth. And, as a widow, her interest in pairing herself with Horace, the “well known unmarried half-a-millionaire,” is not about getting his money for herself. It’s about Dolly’s belief that “money is like manure – it’s not worth a thing unless it's spread about, encouraging young things to grow.”

Do you find that depth important to Dolly’s story?

Yes, because it is something the audience sees from the opening, when Dolly evokes her late husband, Ephraim, several times, She refers to him over and over and over again, and it’s obvious that she was deeply in love with him. He died quite young; and she hasn't been able to move on from that loss.

He's on the tip of her tongue in every single sentence. And just before she sings “Before the Parade Passes By,” she has this beautiful monologue in which she asks him to let her go. Having lost my mother when I was just a child, I can speak as a person who has experienced that kind of loss quite unexpectedly. It's really hard to move on and to let go of that grief. This has made Dolly absolutely poignant for me.

In earlier local productions, Dolly has been played by Carol Channing at the South Shore Music Circus and the Colonial Theatre, Joanne Worley and Rachel York at Reagle Music Theatre, and Jacquelyn Piro Donovan at North Shore Music Theatre, to name a few. How does his production stand on its own?

I think that, specifically in this space, you can’t do it like you would in a huge proscenium. At Lyric, we’re on a thrust stage and the audience is very much a part of the show. Given that, Maurice got Ilyse Robbins on board immediately and she is the best choreographer for this space. Having Maurice and Ilyse, who’ve both previously worked at Lyric onstage and off, has been fortuitous.

And we have Dan Rodriguez – who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things “Hello, Dolly!” – as our music director, great sets by Janie E. Howland, and lighting by Karen Perlow. And because good costumes are where everything comes together in this show, we’re fortunate to have Kelly Baker as our Costume Designer. Whether I’m in a corset perched on high heels or sporting a plume headdress, Kelly makes me look beautiful.

What’s your favorite song from this show?

I’d have to go with “Dancing,” the act one number that features Dolly, Cornelius, Barnaby, Irene, Minnie Fay, and the ensemble. When Dolly gets to observe the dancers, it moves me to tears. Dance is my favorite of the three performance genres – acting, singing, and dancing. I love doing it and I love watching it, too.