“The Matchmaker,” a comedy set in the late 19th century about a wealthy merchant who hires a matchmaker to help him find love, is coming to CNY Playhouse this week. The show will run from March 13-21.

In the production, the main character Horace Vandergelder (Bill Chamis), hires Dolly Levi (Amy Prieto), in order to be his matchmaker. But Vandergelder doesn’t know that Levi is actually out to marry him and take his money.

“The Matchmaker” is the story that inspired Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman’s acclaimed Broadway musical “Hello, Dolly!”

“Hello, Dolly!” follows the story from Dolly Levi’s perspective. Throughout the production, the audience gets to see that Levi actually has a big heart, and Prieto thinks playgoers will be rooting for her by the end.

Nicholas MacLane has been doing community theatre in Syracuse for about six years, but this will be his directorial debut for a play. He chose “The Matchmaker” because he likes that it’s not a typical love story, and it was the first legitimate production he ever acted in, he said.

“Even though it’s a comedy, it still has a lot of depth to it. It’s not just mind-numbing entertainment,” MacLane said. “It’s going to make the audience reflect on kind of their own lives, their own love lives, their own relationships and where they are maybe career-wise, where they are in their personal journeys — all that stuff, but it’s going to make people laugh.”

As the producer of the show, Abel Searor acts as the liaison between the cast, the director and the theater. He said the most difficult part of the show was developing costumes and sets that fit the time period the play takes place in.

The play was originally written in 1954 by Thornton Wilder, who is also well-known for the play, “Our Town.” Searor said that there are many times in which the cast of “The Matchmaker” breaks the fourth wall and communicates with the audience, which is very important to the lesson behind the show.

Prieto was in the CNY Playhouse productions, “Blithe Spirit” and “Rumors” last year, and has been acting for most of her life. But Prieto said that she knew playing Dolly Levi was going to be her biggest role even before production began.

“The likes of Barbra Streisand and Shirley Booth have played her, and I am definitely not either one of them so I’m trying to make the character my own,” she said.

One of the most prevalent themes in the play is the idea of adventure. It provides many lessons regarding everybody’s journey to find meaningfulness in their lives, MacLane said.

One of the characters in the play that talks frequently about adventure is Barnaby Tucker, one of Vandergelder’s clerks. He urges the audience to pay attention to the special people that come into their lives at the most unexpected time, Searor said.

“They can expect to laugh,” he said. “It’s a very funny show. It’s a very fast-paced show, but also, there is a message. And it’s a good message, and it kind of shows you something about love from very different perspectives. It shows you a lot about life.”

Published on March 11, 2020 at 11:31 pm

Contact Sydney: sabergan@syr.edu