Welcome back, Dolly!

After two years away from acting, Patricia Bates Smith returns to the stage tonight in the lead role of the Clearwater City Players' Hello, Dolly!

By MAUREEN BYRNE

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 28, 2000

CLEARWATER -- One could say the acting bug bit the Bates girls.

Youngest sister Kathy made it big in Hollywood, winning an Academy Award for best actress in 1990 for her performance in Misery.

Middle sister Mary took drama in high school and college and performed in local theater in Culver City, Calif.

Oldest sister Patricia has been a staple on the local theater circuit, performing in musicals, comedy and drama and winning four Larys (local theater awards) for her roles.

"It's really a lot of fun," Patricia Bates Smith said of community theater. "It's an experience."

After performing for nearly 20 years for local theater companies, Smith took a break two years ago so she could travel. The 67-year-old Clearwater resident returns to the stage tonight to play Dolly Gallagher Levi, the lead role in Hello, Dolly!

"I figure if Carol Channing can do it in her 70s, I can do it in my 60s," Smith said Monday from her home. "But I'm having second thoughts as I sew these sequins on this dress."

Of course she was only joking. After all, sequins are a must for the extravagant costume Smith will wear on stage this weekend in Clearwater City Players' annual production. The city-sponsored theater group will present three performances of Hello, Dolly! at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

The musical, based on the play The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder, tells the story of Dolly Levi, a widowed matchmaker in 1890s New York. "She meddles in everybody's lives so by the time she finishes she has everybody paired up and happy, including herself," said director Betty Jane Pucci.

Hello, Dolly!, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, was one of Broadway's longest-running shows, and it won 10 Tony Awards, including one for Channing. It was Channing's second smash hit, the first being her portrayal of Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1949.

The show ran for 2,844 performances after its debut on Broadway in 1964. Some 30 years later, Channing revived her role as the meddling matchmaker on Broadway as well as on the road, including at Ruth Eckerd Hall and Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.

Smith says she's excited about playing such a coveted role. And she marvels about the hard work involved in putting on such a production.

"I think that it is absolutely amazing to take a group of 68 people -- novices and amateurs -- and put us all together to work as a cohesive unit in six weeks' time," she said.

The result is a family friendly performance of elaborate scenes and costume changes and plenty of musical numbers, Pucci said, with the kind of songs you leave the theater humming.

City Players was started by veteran director Scottie Michael as a workshop for college students on summer break. Funded by the city, it developed into a community theater known for extravagant live musicals.

At its peak, it staged four productions per year at the old city auditorium. Budget cuts eventually forced it to scale back to one annual performance.

The theater company focuses on Broadway classics like Annie Get Your Gun (1997), The Music Man (1995), Brigadoon (1994) and Showboat (1993).

The cast for Hello, Dolly! also includes Dan Reda as wealthy feed store owner Horace Vandergelder, Alan Mohney Jr. as store clerk Cornelious Hackl and Kim Wiggins as New York milliner Irene Molloy.

Tiffany Snyder plays the role of bubbly shop assistant Minnie Fay and Linda Glosson plays heiress Ernestina Money. Jerry Garron will star as head waiter Rudolph, who, accompanied by a 16-piece orchestra, leads his charges in The Waiter's Gallop and the signature title song, Hello, Dolly!

After two months of preparation by the all-volunteer crew, City Players is ready to present the classic musical, which was made into a movie in 1969 starring Barbra Streisand.

As for Smith, she said she never wanted to be a professional actor like her sister. Instead, she became an educator and raised three sons.

She lost her first husband in Vietnam in 1965. After her second husband died of cancer in 1981, she decided to take up acting. She's been at it ever since.

Does she ever get tired of people asking her about her famous sister?

"I just forget that she's such a star, I guess," Smith said. "To me she's a sister who is doing well in her chosen career. I think it's great. Both my sisters are talented."

Smith and her sister Mary were extras in the funeral scene in the 1998 movie Primary Colors in which Bates plays a campaign troubleshooter for a Democratic presidential candidate.

Smith attributes her and her sisters' love of acting to their Irish roots. "My father's side was Irish," she said. "I think that has a lot to do with it, all that good storytelling."

At a glance

Clearwater City Players will present Hello Dolly at 8 p.m. today and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullenBooth Road, Clearwater. Tickets are $12. Parking is free. Call (727) 791-7400.

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