Carolee Carmello has some high heels to fill in the touring production of Hello, Dolly!

The actress will be starring in an iconic role that has been played by—just to name a few—Carol Channing, Bette Midler, Ethel Merman, Bernadette Peters, Ginger Rogers, Pearl Bailey, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, and yes, Phyllis Diller.

Carmello, a three-time Tony Award-nominee, is taking over in the title role of the touring production of Hello, Dolly!, which plays The Bushnell in Hartford Tuesday through Sunday, Nov. 12 to 17. John Bolton, a frequent Connecticut actor last seen in Hartford Stage’s Anastasia, plays Horace Vandergelder. Carmello succeeds Betty Buckley, who toured with the show for its first year of the Broadway revival’s tour.

And what was Carmello’s first recollection of the popular musical, which bowed on Broadway in 1964, running with a series off stars through 1971?

“The first time was the movie with Barbra Streisand, and I guess I’ve seen some regional or summer stock productions over the years, but I didn’t see this production until I saw Betty Buckley do it in Washington D.C. earlier this year,” Carmello says. “I didn’t see it in New York.”

The musical is welcoming to wide variety of actresses because, she says, “the writing is so good.” (Michael Stewart did the musical adaptation of The Matchmaker by Hamden’s Thornton Wilder.)

What does Carmello bring to the role?

“I hope I bring a sense of playfulness. Dolly enjoys what she does so much and she has so much fun in her meddling. But she’s also vulnerable, which I think is the wondrous part of the show. You see her public face, but you also get to see her private moments when she’s speaking alone to the spirit to her late husband Ephram,” Carmello says. “I love those moments when you get to see the person behind the mask.

|CONTINUED|