Larry Raben (Cornelius Hackl in HELLO, DOLLY! Pittsburgh CLO with Victoria Clark as Dolly Levi, 2004)

Larry Raben

Connections areeverything in this business. Larry Raben had worked with director, GlennCasale (known for reinventing the musical Peter Pan with Cathy Rigby), before. In 2004, Larry was in New York doing TheProducers as Leopold Bloom on Broadway.  Pittsburgh CLO was mounting a production of Hello, Dolly!  Glenn recommended Larry. At that time theartistic director was Ben Kaplan who Larry had worked with at Casa Manana inFort Worth, Texas. 

Victoria Clark

It was a nice convergence of people that Larry knew thatsaid he would be great for the show. They brought him in. He played CorneliusHackl opposite Jacquelyn Piro Donovan as Irene Molloy (she has gone on to dotwo major productions of Dolly AS Dolly at North Shore MusicTheatre in Massachusetts and North Carolina Theatre in Raleigh, North Carolina).She is currently starring in Closer Than Ever in New York and will also beappearing in the upcoming Kathie Lee Gifford musical. Most recently, Jacquelyn appearedopposite Gary Beach (as Horace Vandergelder) at North Shore. She is a wonderfulactress. At Pittsburgh’s CLO, there Dolly was Victoria Clark. She wasbrilliant. You could not ask for a better voice or a more grounded actress. Victoria Clark was an absolute dream to workwith. She had a twinkle in her eyes at all times. She is warm, creative, andinquisitive and playful and she set the tone in rehearsals from the top ondown. It was exciting to be in a room with her and Glenn. It was a wonderfulrehearsal room. During rehearsals, Victoria told everyone that afterward, shewas going to be working on a workshop of a new show in New York called The Light in the Piazza. It had beenpicked up by Lincoln Center in the fall and it was very special to her andwould be a very limited run. She was hoping that the company would find theirway to New York in the autumn to see it. The rest is history!

Lee Roy Reams, Carol, Jerry Herman, Bill Bateman (Photo courtesy: Bill Bateman)

Larry knows Lee Roy Reams. He has also donebenefits with Carol Channing. Hello, Dolly is in their blood, so Larry hadheard great stories. Larry had also done TheMatchmaker in college, as Barnaby Tucker. He has always been fascinatedwith the story. He thinks the original script is witty, charming, and hilariousplay. He knows that Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart stayed true to theoriginal source material. He had wanted to do the musical since doing the playin college.

Veteran performers/ life partners Larry Raben and David Engel

After doing the musical, Larry’s respect forboth the play and the musical increased. Being able to sing those great songsAND having those great monologues, he realizes that there are not many musicalscrafted in that fashion. He has more respect for the piece and feels that it istruly one of the GREAT musicals of the American musical theater. He wishes moreartists will take a look at how it is constructed and use it as a template.At Pittsburgh CLO, they had a six dayrehearsal period! They then went into tech and opened on day eight.  If he had a chance to rehearse the pieceagain, Larry would go in completely off book. He would like to have as muchtime to explore as possible.

Victoria Clark and Company

Larry feels that Victoria Clark wouldcertainly sell tickets in New York. He thinks she would be quite brilliant. Hewould love to see Jean Smart play Dolly. He did a musical reading of Paper Moon with her. She did theMadeline Kahn role. He feels that smart is an undiscovered, underutilizedmusical talent. She is a brilliant comedienne as we have all seen on TV. Hertheatrical instincts are unparalleled. She also has a wonderful voice. He alsothinks Joanna Gleason would “kill it”. Larry absolutely feels that Hello, Dolly is in the top fiveproductions of his career.

Forever Plaid cast (l.-r.) Daniel Reichard, Larry Raben, Stan Chandler and David Engel with director Stuart Ross.

photo by J.R. Lizarraga

Forever Plaid cast (l.-r.) Daniel Reichard, Larry Raben, Stan Chandler and David Engel with director Stuart Ross.

photo by J.R. Lizarraga

Since Larry’s first experience with Dolly wasthrough Wilder’s play, he had that in his back pocket. It informed how heapproached the role. It was text first. He is born and bred in the Midwest.Although, Barnaby and Cornelius are from Yonkers, there is a real Midwestern sensibilityto these characters. There is an innocence that has to be at their core. Theseguys can’t play “at it.” They have to embody guys who have dreams of the bigcity who have not gone there. Larry has seen people do the show where they playit “cutsie” or they have played it, “Aw, shucks” or kind of hay seedy. Larryfeels they missed the point. These gentlemen are not “simple”; they are justnot versed in love and in city life and the experiences that come with that. Itis wonderful to take the audience on that journey of discovery, as you watchthese men experience New York and fall in love all in the course of one amazingwonderful day.  

The Alzheimer's Association's 17th Annual "A Night At Sardi's" - Inside
(Source: Getty Images

Once Hello, Dolly show opened, it ran from July 20^thto August 1^st, two weeks. Larry absolutely continued to “tweak” hisperformance after the show opened. That was one of the great joys of getting towork with Victoria Clark. Steve Vinovich was a great Horace Vandergelder. MichaelMcGurk, (who played the same role at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia),was Barnaby Tucker. He has gone on to do a lot of tours and other Broadwayshows. It was a wonderful cast of inquisitive, playful people and theexploration kept on going. 

Tony Danza Prepares An Italian Feast For The Cast Of "The Producers"

Larry really loves working comic moments. He thinksof it as taking a single hair and trying to slice it. You try it as manydifferent ways as you can. Larry likes to try a slightly different approach. Atthe same moment, you keep the integrity that was rehearsed, to see if you can’tnine a little something extra from a slightly different angle.When Larry embarked on this production, he did not knowVictoria Clark and he was also coming off of The Producers on Broadway. Heunderstudied Matthew Broderick and played the role a lot. It was a very goodtime for Larry. He was in a real career ascent. After Dolly, he moved back toCalifornia. Doing the show was part of a process of playing those quirky guysin their thirties who get the girl. He has gone on to play the David HydePierce track in Spamalot and Lt.Frank Cioffi in Curtains. It is anarc of these kinds of characters that Larry feels that he was born to play.Playing Cornelius is a great feather in his cap.
From Vickie Clark, Larry learned amazing stillness. Shereally held the audience with truth and a wonderfully understated good sense.She has an ability to find in her stillness amazing humor. At first glance,that might have passed by too quickly. He has studied that and he has taken itand used it. He thanks Vickie for that.In the script, the characters are always talking aboutadventure. Every character in the piece needs to shake up the situation thatthey are in and their needing to ride back into and invest in the human race.It is such a simplistic but an amazingly deep-felt truth that we all have that.All of us at sometime just need to close up the store and go on the town for aday. We need to open our minds and our eyes and our hearts to a chance at loveagain, to re-invest to the world around us and the people around us. You canreally feel the audience take that journey with these characters. Larry’s worst experience in Dolly happened during aperformance when he literally stepped out a shoe at the end of Sunday Clothes. It was during a bigmovement pattern across the stage. There was a lot of body slamming takingplace! It was very embarrassing, but ultimately funny. When those momentshappen, you just make big comic gold out of them. At the moment that it washappening, all he could think of was the fact that he lost a shoe on stage. He had a horrible thing happen when he was doing The Matchmaker.  He was playing Barnaby . At this particulartheater, he and Cornelius had to be pre-set before the house opened.
There wasno entrance to the pit and they had to come up through the cellar door. Theywere in that pit every night from about seven twenty five until they made theirfirst entrance around eight PM.  Corneliusand Barnaby would just be down there and they would play cards. It was a “desertcoffin.” At the time, at the slightest provocation, Larry’s nose would startbleeding. One night, they were rough housing down below while the show wasgoing on. “Cornelius” knocks Larry’s nose with his elbow. He bled fortwenty-five minutes in a cream colored suit under the stage with no tissue,trying to figure out how to get it to stop before he made his first entrance.
He made his entrance with a little sniffle. He had managed to clean up the bleeding with his socks. He and Corneliusrun off stage after that scene and have a minute costume change before reappearingin the hat shop scene for the next half hour. They hide, “Cornelius” in thewardrobe and Larry under the table. By the end of Act One, Larry had bloodpouring down his face and all over this “ice cream” suit that he is wearing ashe is trying to romance Minnie Fay. It looked like a horror show. Larry has also seen Carol Swarbrick play Dolly. He saw herdo it in San Diego. She was incredible with a big brassy voice, big hearted. Heimagines watching her was a little more like watching Ethel Merman. She had abig presence with a wonderful sense of humor. She was amazing. Larry saw Carol Channing do it. Two years ago (2010) at ageeighty-nine, Channing performed the Ephraim soliloquy into and including Before the Parade Passes By. The specificitywith which she approached both the monologue and the song were spellbinding.You could hear a pin drop. You realized you were truly in the presence ofgreatness. Glenn Casale is an amazing director. He knows every momentof the show before he even starts working on it. He knows every lyric, everyline, and every bit of text. He approaches it as a whole piece. He is all aboutcharacter development and the arc. He has an amazing sense of comedy and agreat sense of humor, especially in a very short rehearsal period. He loves approximatingfor you, with a real natural laugh, where the laughs are likely to be in theshow. Glenn prides himself on giving the actors a very realistic rhythm of theshow, how things are going to play and where you’re going to get those laughs.It truly is a gift.
 

In This Photo: Tony Danza, Leigh Zimmerman, Larry Raben

Larry remembers Glenn at the first rehearsal discussing theshow with the cast. He remembers him mentioning how perfectly and seamlesslythe show is written.
There is nothing extraneous in it. Glenn encouraged thecast to really take this text and be open to it. There is more information inthis text than most musicals have, the character nuances. He encouraged thecast to find it and celebrate it and be specific with it. Glenn loves the show. Larry can say he has happily never seen a Dolly that missedthe mark. That would truly break his heart.
Jerry Herman’s sense of melody and song construction is aquintessential sound of the great old Broadway show tune.
Those songs in Dollyseem to flow effortlessly out of the moments. The lyrics all further thecharacters and the plot. They are just gorgeous moving melodies. A song assimple as Dancing is just a gorgeouswaltz. It is one of the “lesser” tunes in the show, but a gorgeous piece ofwriting. It doesn’t get any better than Beforethe Parade Passes By or It Only Takes a Moment. They are just great classicBroadway songs.When Larry was in high school, he changed high schools. Hewent back to the high school he had previously gone to, and they were doing Hello, Dolly! It was the first time hesaw the play and heard the score. It was enchanting.    Playing Barnaby and Cornelius, Larry put his own stamp onthe characters. How to quantify that, Larry doesn’t know. When he did Hello,Dolly, he had seen Channing do the show as well as the production he had seenin high school. He likes to be a detective with the text. He likes to see whatthe author and lyricist had to say about the person and the situation. Larryjust tries to find his own quirk in that situation. There are other wonderfulmen who have played Cornelius Hackl. Larry is friends with Will Mackenzie, thesecond Cornelius on Broadway in Hello, Dolly, after Charles Nelson Reilly. Willplayed it with Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, and Betty Grable. Larry considershimself in the same mold as Will. They are both comic actors with strongvoices. They have discussed this. Neither approached the role as a singing role.It wasn’t about the vocal production of the role. It was about this unversedperson from Yonkers, about his heart filling with love and having thisadventure. That informs how he sings the score.
 

Steve Vinovich

Steve Vinovich, as Horace Vandergelder, was agreat cool actor. When Larry saw Steve and Vickie do the table scene, he KNEWthis was going to be a great Dolly. Prior to that, Larry had seen Vickie playthe busybody in Second Class. He knewshe had a wonderful voice and a good sense of comedy. His initial thought wasthat she was too young to play Dolly. That quickly changed. With Steve andVickie, you really wanted to see these two people have a second go at love.  
Larry’s overall experience of working atPittsburgh’s CLO was fantastic. They treat you really well. The show came andwent so quickly. They had recently had a twenty-five million dollar renovationprior to Dolly. The theater is in the center of town. It’s a gorgeous old houseof a theater. The organization is really well supported by the community and bytheir arts programs. Pittsburgh is a great city.  There are private clubs along the river. Thereis a great sandwich with coleslaw and pastrami. It’s a famous miner sandwich. Lunchbreaks were short so the miners could get back to work as quickly as possibleand everything was thrown on the sandwich.   It wasa really good time. It made Larry long for more summer stock. It was Broadway bootcamp! They used a lot of Carnegie Mellon andMichigan kids there and some CCM to fill out the ensemble and they were therefor the whole summer. In the chorus was a young and very talented Nick Adams. 
 
Hello,Dolly to Larry Raben is the ultimate adventure on stage. There are greatcharacters and an amazing score. It is a fully realized journey for each and everyone on that stage.      
Thank you Larry Raben for the gifts you have given to the world and will continue to give!

With grateful XOXOXs ,


Check out my site celebrating my forthcoming book on Hello, Dolly!

I want this to be a definitive account of Hello, Dolly!  If any of you reading this have appeared in any production of Dolly, I'm interested in speaking with you!

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