Three-time Tony Nominee Carolee Carmello is one of my favorite Broadway stars! Every time I see her perform, I am transported to another world where her heavenly voice lifts me high up above the clouds.

When I heard Carolee was leading the second leg of the National Tour of Hello, Dolly!, I knew I NEEDED to get an interview with her to discuss taking on the legendary role of Dolly Levi in this iconic show.

A few weeks before this interview, I was fortunate enough to see the touring production of Hello, Dolly!, starring Carolee Carmello at The Bushnell in Hartford, CT. What an amazing production! I had seen the Broadway production with both Donna Murphy and Bette Midler in the role, but Carolee has brought a whole new dimension to this role, while keeping the original spirit of Dolly Levi in tact.

I can’t urge you enough to go see Carolee in this show. Everyone in the cast is terrific, but no matter how many times you have seen this show or whom you’ve seen play Dolly Levi previously, I can guarantee, you have not seen it, until you’ve seen Carolee Carmello! With her angelic vocals, superb comedic timing, and picture perfect smile, Carolee will wow you like no one before!

In this NEW interview, Carolee once again answered my call, but this time around she shares:

• Why she is so excited to play this iconic role
• What she loves about being on tour
• Her biggest stage mishap
• What it’s like performing in some of the same theatres as Carol Channing
• So much more

Connect with Carolee: Instagram

Carolee Carmello and the National Tour Company of Hello, Dolly!
Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

1. You are currently starring in one of the most iconic shows and roles in Broadway history. You are starring in the National Tour of Hello, Dolly! as Dolly Levi. How did you come to this role and show? I had originally auditioned for Jerry Zaks and the whole team when they were doing the Broadway company. It didn’t work out for me to do the show at that point, but when they were replacing Betty Buckley on the tour, they must have thought of me, because I have worked with Jerry a couple of times before. They had approached my agents and extended an offer to me. I didn’t have to re-audition, which was very nice.

The timing worked out great for me because I hadn’t been on tour in a very long time, since before my children were born. My youngest, who is now 18, just started college, so it was a good time for me to go out and see the country and enjoy tour life again.

2. What do you love about being on tour? I love meeting the audiences from different parts of the country who come to the show.

3. What is the hardest part about tour life? One of the hard things for me is not seeing my children. I mean, I’m not sure how much I’d see them if I were home since they are out on their own now. Just being away from friends and family is the hardest part.

4. What were you most excited about in taking on this role? For me, the most exciting part is that it’s just so well written. Many times you do shows where you have to fill in holes in the writing and you have to make up for certain things missing in your character. This is such a beautifully written show and a fully realized character that it’s such a joy to play her every night.

5. What made you nervous taking on this role? [Laughs] Well, what makes me nervous, as you can imagine, is that so many amazing wonderfully talented women have played this part. I feel a sense of responsibility to rise to the occasion and I also know that audiences coming in have a very strong opinion about whom they have seen in the past. You want to live up to that. You don’t want to be a disappointment.

Carolee Carmello as Dolly Levi on the National Tour of Hello, Dolly!
Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

6. What is the most challenging part to playing Dolly Levi? I’m surprised how physically challenging the role is. Maybe that’s because I’m getting older. I really feel like I had a work out by the end of the night. I work up a sweat. I did not expect that at all. There are lots of women who have played this role in their 70s and Carol Channing played it in her 80s. I did not expect it to be as physically demanding as I am finding it [Laughs].

7. What do you relate to most about Dolly Levi? What I find relatable is that Dolly has this public persona and then a private persona, which we all have of course. I think when you are in show business that is heightened because you have to be on all the time when meeting people at events. You feel like you have to put on a lot of energy and smiling and a lot of chat. Dolly does that very well. She’s such a quick, witty, character. Then when you see her in the more vulnerable moments, talking to her late husband Ephraim, you really see this softer, underbelly of Dolly.

I can relate to the difference between when you are in public and what’s really going on underneath the mask.

8. What is one characteristic of Dolly Levi’s you are glad, you yourself, do not possess? [Laughs] It’s not a characteristic of hers, but certainly one of the things about playing this part that I am glad I don’t have to deal with in real life, in 2019, is the kind of clothing they have to wear [Laughs]. I mean a corset for a couple of hours is tolerable, but if I had to wear a corset all day everyday, that would get pretty frustrating. Between the corset, the bustle, and the heals I definitely feel like I’m squeezed and squished in all kinds of different places, so I’m really glad those have gone out of fashion [Laughs].

9. You have played in some of the same theatres as Carol Channing who originated the role of Dolly Levi on Broadway. What is it like knowing you are walking the same stage? It’s daunting, but also exciting. I feel there is a sense of theatre history when I walk into some of these theatres. I don’t know if you saw the picture I posted on Twitter from the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, where the original out of town, pre-Broadway try-out of Hello, Dolly! took place. The fact Carol Channing walked through that same stage door allows me to imagine Carol walking through that door and working out the kinks of the show. It’s musical theatre history. To feel like I am in that same path she has walked, is pretty darn exciting.

Carol Channing in 1963 (left), Carolee Carmello in 2019 (right), Hello, Dolly!
Entering the stage door of Fisher Theatre in Detroit, Michigan
Photo courtesy of Carolee Carmello’s Twitter

10. Do you have any stories of things that have happened backstage or during the show that could prove Carol was watching over you, similar to Dolly Levi asking her late husband, Ephraim to give her a sign it’s okay to marry Horace Vandergelder? I haven’t seen her ghost or anything [Laughs]. I do feel she is watching over me because on my opening night in Kansas City, John Bolton who plays Horace, gave me this amazing opening night present.

It was a broach that Carol Channing wore in one of the many times she played Dolly Levi. He possessed it because he became friends with Carol’s dresser who was a neighbor of his. The dresser gave John some of Carol’s memorabilia and John passed this broach on to me, which I now wear on stage every night. I do feel like I have a little piece of Carol and that she is watching over me and hopefully giving me some of her amazing spirit.

11. What has been your biggest mishap to happen on tour so far? One night at the end of Act I, I’m standing downstage center, singing “Before The Parade Passes By” and the big velvet curtain that comes in at the very end of the act, started coming in before the end of the act, like a few minutes early, while I was still singing the song. The whole cast was behind me and watched it descend and hit me on the head. I sort of crawled out from under it. I didn’t hit the ground, but I definitely had to crouch down and squeeze myself out from underneath this big heavy velvet curtain [Laughs]. And I kept singing and kept going [Laughs]. It was one of the moments where you say to yourself, “That could have been a really big disaster.” Luckily nobody got hurt.

12. What is your favorite scenes in the show to perform? It changes, but right now, the “Hat Shop” scene is a lot of fun. It was my least favorite one when I was learning it in rehearsal. When you are working in a rehearsal room on a piece of comedy and you don’t have anyone to serve as an audience, because everyone in rehearsal, knows what the jokes are, it’s hard to gauge, but when you get in front of an audience and people are laughing, it’s amazing how much fun it is [Laughs].

13. What is your favorite scene to just be a spectator to? Most times, between scenes, I’m changing costumes. There are a couple of times I get to stand in the wings and watch parts of scenes, if not the whole thing. I do get to watch John Bolton and all the boys do “It Takes A Woman” because I have an exit before that scene and then I come right back on after the song. It’s delightful to watch. They’re all just so good. That song is so fun.

I also get to watch the ensemble dance in the song “Dancing.” They are all so talented. They are beautiful dancers.

14. I love your Twitter postings of #TributeTuesdays, where you give a fact about Hello, Dolly! What is the most interesting thing you have learned about the show from these postings? Not that I didn’t know this before, but I think I’m learning more about the fact so many different kinds of women have played this part. The next one I’m about to post is Pearl Bailey. That was a very interesting choice by David Merrick, who was the producer of the show on Broadway. He closed down the show and then re-opened it with an entirely African American cast. In the late 1960s, that was pretty daring.

By studying the difference between Carol Channing, Ethel Merman, Pearl Bailey, and Ginger Rogers, the range of people who have played this role is astonishing. It demonstrates that the show works with so many different personalities, a spectrum of women can play this role. They don’t have to all be like Carol Channing. That is fascinating to me and it’s a tribute to the good writing.

John Bolton and the National Tour Company of Hello, Dolly!
Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

15. Let's find out more about you by playing with some the song titles that Dolly Levi sings in the show.

• "Before The Parade Passes By" - What is something you still want to do "Before the parade passes by"? More traveling. I’m certainly doing it now in the United States, but I’d love to see other parts of the world. I’ve never been to Ireland or Greece. Those would be a the top of my bucket list.
• “I Put My Hand In” – When have you put your hand in something that you shouldn’t have and someone told you to stop meddling? I’m not really like that. I’m not a meddler. I keep my distance. The only time that would have happened and probably still happens is with my children. I’m sure they would prefer I don’t meddle in their lives as much as I do, but I try my best to give them space.
• "Hello, Dolly!" - What is a moment in your life, when you felt like Dolly Levi walking down those center stairs at the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant? The one that pops into my head is the very first time I walked the red carpet at the Tony Awards when I was nominated for Parade. I was in a big fancy dress. I felt important for the first time.

16. Dolly Levi was a woman of many talents. What are some talents of yours we don’t get to see on stage? I feel like I’m good at word games. I love to play Scrabble and Words with Friends. I was a business major in school, so I feel like I’m pretty good at mathematical things.

17. Dolly Levi also had numerous jobs - matchmaker, dance instructor, mandolin lessons, etc. What are some odd jobs you had prior to being a full-time actress? I was a perfume model at Macy’s. I did that for a few years because it was really great flexible work where I could come and go to auditions and work my schedule around whatever I needed to do.

When I first moved to New York, I signed up with a couple of temp agencies, who hired actors at the time, to hand out samples on the street corner. I remember one time they sent me down to the Wall Street area with a tray of cigarettes, which would probably never happen today, but it was some new brand of cigarettes they were trying to promote, and I had to hand out [Laughs] packs of cigarettes for $10/hour.

Carolee Carmello and the National Tour Company of Hello, Dolly!
Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

18. When will there be a Carolee Carmello solo album released and/or a cabaret or concert show created for you? I don’t know Adam. I wouldn’t mind doing an album if I had a really great idea for one. That’s what has always kept me from doing it. I just don’t want to do an album of random songs strung together that don’t have a point.

In the last 10 years, I have wanted to do a one-woman theatrical piece, as opposed to a cabaret show. I haven’t found the right thing yet. If that happens and there is an album created from that show, then maybe that would be my solo album. Now we just have to find the show.

19. What is something about Carolee Carmello that you have never shared before in an interview? I feel like I’ve told this in one other interview, so it might not qualify, but I feel it’s relative to this interview more than any other because it’s about Hello, Dolly!

According to my parents, and I sort of remember this, but the song “Hello, Dolly!” was the first song I ever sang, when I was like a year old. This doesn’t really come up that often in interviews because people don’t ask me what I sang when I was a toddler [We laugh].

I do have a distinct memory of standing in my grandmother’s house in Albany, NY and having a bunch of adults sitting on a bed watching me sing “Hello, Dolly!” I don’t know how I learned that song because it would have been 1963 or 1964. The Broadway show would have barely been open. The movie hadn’t been made yet. I don’t know how I learned it, but that’s the song my family always says, “Oh, we knew she was going to be a singer because when she was one year old, she was singing ‘Hello, Dolly!’ for everybody.”

Performing this show is now kind of full circle for me. It only took me 57 years, but I finally got to sing it on a real stage!

More Carolee Carmello Interviews:

2009 (Read Here): 10 Things You Didn’t Know About This Two-Time Tony Nominated Actress
2011 (Read Here): Saving Aimee by Kathie Lee Gifford

Carolee Carmello, Photo Credit: Emilio Madrid

More on Carolee Carmello:

Carolee Carmello has appeared in 14 Broadway musicals and is a three-time Tony Award nominee for her performances in Parade, Lestat, and Scandalous. She recently completed a year-long run as Mrs. Lovett in the critically acclaimed Sweeney Todd at New York’s Barrow Street Theatre. Additional Broadway roles include Mae Tuck in Tuck Everlasting; Mrs. du Maurier in Finding Neverland (Drama Desk Award nomination); Mother Superior in Sister Act; Alice Beineke in The Addams Family (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations); Donna in Mamma Mia!; Ms. Pennywise in Urinetown; Kate in Kiss Me, Kate; Marguerite in The Scarlet Pimpernel; Abigail Adams in 1776; Cordelia in Falsettos; and Oolie in City of Angels.

Off-Broadway credits include John & Jen, Das Barbecü, I Can Get It For You Wholesale, Hello Again (Obie Award), A Class Act, The Vagina Monologues, and Elegies.

Television credits include The Deuce, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Good Fight, Madam Secretary, Smash, Law and Order: SVU, Frasier, Ed, and Remember W.E.N.N. (SAG Award nomination). Carolee was nominated for an Indie Series Award for Best Supporting Actress in the award-winning web series Indoor Boys.

Her concert appearances have taken her across America and Europe, including engagements at Lincoln Center, Town Hall, and Carnegie Hall.