What: “Hello, Dolly!”

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 13, and Saturday, April 14, and Fridays and Saturdays through April 28. There are 2 p.m. matinees on April 14, 21 and 28.

Where: Wichita Theatre, 919 Indiana Avenue

Admission: $24 adults, and $10 for children 12 and under

Information: WichitaTheatre.com or (940) 723-9037

For as long as native Wichitan Susan Mansur Bahr lived in New York City, she never got to see the delightful Carol Channing play widowed matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi in “Hello, Dolly!”

“I was always working,” she said, “but my son went to see it with my mother--when she was in town--and he was completely mesmerized by her.” And, she also knew many actors in the musical. “The original governor in ‘Best Little Whorehouse,’ Jay Garner played Horace (Vandergelder) in Channing’s last tour and he loved her.”

When director Chance Harmon approached Susan to play Dolly in Wichita Falls, she said, “Yes!” The glamorous production opens at 7:30 p.m. Friday April 6 and Saturday April 7 at the Wichita Theatre. The production runs Fridays and Saturdays through April 28 with 2 p.m. matinees on April 14, 21 and 28.

It will not her first time to be in the Wichita Theatre, having happily watched many movies there growing up and more recently enjoying theatrical productions. But it is her first time to perform there. 

Her Broadway performances include Doatsey Mae in “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” Truvie in “Steel Magnolias” and “Damn Yankees” with Jerry Lewis.  
The musical that brought her onto that stage is the 1964 classic “Hello, Dolly!” which won 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical.

Until now, she said, “I had always stayed away from Wichita Falls theater because it was nonunion, and I maintain my equity membership. Chance was able to work it out with equity and here I am!”

It’s essentially about a widow (Dolly) who has decided that it’s either now or never to come out of her grief, she said. “I either become my own person again and begin a new chapter of my life, or I don’t.”

Bahr is very pleased with her director as well as the cast, sets and costuming.

She will be joined by Keith Pond, who plays half-a-millionaire widower Horace Vandergelder, the proprietor of a hay and feed store in (of all places) Yonkers. “Keith is just everything you want Horace to be,” she said. 

Then there’s Vandergelder’s clerks, Cornelius Hackl (Bryson Petersen), who desperately wants to come to New York City, and Barnaby Tucker (Carson Hollingsworth).

 Finally, there’s Irene Molloy (Kara Hicks), a widower who owns a hat shop and wants romance, along with her shop assistant, Minnie Fay (Angelica Concepcion).

The Broadway actress very much enjoys working with Harmon who also spend a good deal of time working in New York City. “He’s such a wonderful director. He has such good energy and loves kids, and they just love him. He’s like the Pied Piper.”

She said “Hello Dolly” is really her first time to do a show in three or four years. “All of the numbers are so beautiful. It’s a wonderful show, it really is. It deserves to be revived.”

Being as familiar as she was with the Wichita Theatre from seeing shows there, she knew the possibilities for the production.  

There is projection, she said, for outdoor scenes, and then there are the sets. “The sets are very impressive,” she said. “For example, they turn from Horace’s office to being the hat shop. We have a lot of impressive stagecraft.”

She’s very pleased with how imaginative her costumes are. “There’s one dress that’s just fabulous. Lisa Jackson, the primary designer of the costumes, is very good. There are tons of seamstresses that help her and are very good at what they do.”

To top it all off, she said there will be a nine-piece orchestra performing the music. “The rehearsals have been really fun and I am really looking forward to the opening.”