Combine the power of Bette Midler with the popularity of one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history, and you get blockbuster ticket sales.
Bette Midler recently announced that she would star in a revival of Hello, Dolly! at the Schubert Theatre starting in March with co-star David Hyde Pierce (Frasier). This weekend, tickets for the show went on sale with first day sales totaling $9,082,497, the most ever taken in for a Broadway show on the first day of sales.
This is Bette Midler’s sixth trip onto the boards with her first trip being early in her career when she took over the role of Tzeitel, the oldest daughter in the original production of Fiddler on the Roof. She followed with three concert extravaganza’s, Bette Midler (1973), Bette Midler’s Clams on a Half Shell Revue (1975) and Bette! Divine Madness (1979) along with the one-woman show I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers (2013). She also starred in the TV adaptation of the show Gypsy.
Hello, Dolly!, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman (Mame, La Cage aux Folles) and book by Michael Stewart, was based on Thorton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. The original production, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, opened on January 16, 1964 with Carol Channing, David Burns, Charles Nelson Reilly and Eileen Brennan. It won a record ten Tony Awards, a mark that it held for 37 years.
Channing had a long run in the show before being replaced by Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Pearl Bailey, Phyllis Diller and Ethel Merman. When it closed in 1970, it had played 2,844 performances, the most for that time for a musical and the third longest run overall.
The show has previously be revived three times, in 1975 with Bailey and in 1978 and 1995 with Channing.
Hello, Dolly! with Bette Midler will start previews on March 15 with an opening scheduled for April 20.
Bette Midler’s debut album ‘The Divine Miss M’ has been expanded by Warner Music.
Bette Midler-The Divine Miss M track list 2016
Disc 1
Do You Want To Dance
Chapel Of Love
Superstar
Hello In There
Am I Blue
Friends
Daytime Hustler
Leader Of The Pack
Delta Dawn
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Friends
Disc 2
Chapel Of Love – Single Mix
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy – Single Version
Do You Want To Dance – Single Mix
Friends – Single Mix
Old Cape Cod – Earliest Recording & Mix
Marahuana – Earliest Recording & Mix
Superstar – Alternate Recording
Saturday Night – Demo
Mr. Freedom And I – Demo
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