At last Friday’s rehearsal, director Lanni Luce West asked her teenage cast to circle up on the Lebanon Opera House stage and share one thing that made them each unique.

Their answers ran the gamut from “I write a haiku every night” to “My middle name is Fenway.”

Hartford High School senior Cora Winslow offered that she was “a big fan of movies from the 1940s.”

Winslow will star as the titular character in “Hello, Dolly!,” North Country Community Theatre’s tribute to the Golden Age of Broadway this weekend.

“It’s been my favorite since I was 10,” said Winslow, who submitted the play to NCCT’s teen board, which chooses the annual winter show.

The goal of catering to a wide audience also played a part in the board’s selection. Last year, NCCT staged “Legally Blonde,” the musical adaptation of the early 2000s comedy about a West Coast sorority sister turned Harvard law student. “Hello, Dolly!” felt like the perfect counterpoint.

I can see the show enticing older theater-goers like my Gen X parents, for instance, who recently planned a whole vacation around catching Imelda Staunton in the West End revival. 

Set in New York City and Yonkers, N.Y., at the dawn of the 20th century, the musical centers around Dolly Gallagher Levi, a gregarious socialite and widow with a penchant for matchmaking. Her attempt to find a wife for the patrician crab Horace Vandergelder, played by Hugh Wendling, takes a chaotic turn when the employees at Vandergelder’s store pursue some high jinks of their own.

From the lavish costumes to the over-the-top dance numbers like “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” everything about “Hello, Dolly!” is large and exuberant. NCCT’s production embraces that maximalism.

Audiences can expect playful sets designed by Jason Fearon and built by Craig Mowery that utilize the LOH stage to its fullest extent.

The show’s ensemble comprises nearly 30 actors who have been in dance rehearsals since mid-January. 

Their moves might not be perfect, but that’s what gives community theater its charm, said Lebanon High School senior Reeve Green. 

“There’s some people where, even if they’re doing the dance wrong or it’s not a conventional way of dancing, the physicality is so funny and their own,” he said. Green is the co-president of NCCT’s teen board and will feature in the play’s ensemble.

At the nucleus of all the action is Dolly, with her benevolent schemes and zest for life. Her part is a challenging one, with songs that are wordy and technically demanding. Since the show’s Broadway debut in 1964, her role has been inhabited by such musical theater titans as Barbra Streisand and Carol Channing.

Winslow favors Bette Midler’s rendition from 2017.

Last week, the production transitioned rehearsals to the opera house, which seats over 800. The move has helped Winslow access Dolly’s monumental spirit, she said in an interview.

“(It) gives me more confidence, and I can fill up the space with my character,” she said. Winslow played one of the bawdy aunts in Hartford High School’s production of “Mamma Mia” last summer.

“I lean towards the comedic roles,” she said.

NCCT isn’t just interested in staging ambitious musicals; fostering a space for teens to connect is also foundational to its mission.

Some of NCCT’s actors, like Green and Winslow, have been a part of the organization since ninth grade, and they’ve developed friendships from across Upper Valley schools.

“Some of my best friends I’ve made here. I would never have met them if I just stayed at my school and had not gone anywhere else,” Winslow said.

“Hello, Dolly!” runs from Friday, Feb. 28 through Sunday, March 2. For tickets ($20 for adults, $15 for youth and seniors) and more information, go to lebanonoperahouse.org or call 603-448-0400.

High school art at AVA Gallery

A couple blocks away, on Bank Street, adolescent creativity continues to flourish, this time at AVA Gallery’s 17th Annual Regional High School Exhibition. Nominated by their teachers, more than 100 students from 14 area high schools have work on display.

Last Friday, Art New England magazine publisher Rita Fucillo was tasked with choosing a winner and runner-up from the exhibition’s seven categories.

Fucillo joined via Zoom, but the gallery itself was packed with students, teachers and parents patiently awaiting her decision.

“It’s clear to me that you all have much to say to yourself and to the world,” she said of the artists in her opening speech.

Indeed, the work on display ranged from the zany to the fantastical.

Some highlights included Quinn Ardolino’s “Abstract Lorax,” which started with a small orange creature made from 3-D printer scraps from Mascoma Valley Regional High School and grew into a small forest of Truffula Trees.

“Dr. Seuss has always followed me,” said Ardolino, referencing her middle school performance in “Seussical Junior.”

Meanwhile, Ailyn Langley, 18, took inspiration from action-horror video games like “Bendy and the Ink Machine” for her painting of an ice cream cone with tentacles and eyeballs.

“I really like that every part of it was super detailed,” she said of her painting, which she rendered in the style of photorealism.

Langley’s friends helped her come up with the painting’s title: “Murderous Mulberry Eye Scream,” and her art teacher Jennifer Ellis, who nominated her, helped Langley develop her ideas.

“I talk to her a lot about what I’m doing and in her art classes I always get new inspiration,” she said.

Octopi also served as the subject of Proctor Academy senior Molly Schad’s ceramic mugs.

Fired with green and blue glazes, their tentacles form the vessels’ handles.

Schad has also experimented with integrating squids, lobsters and frogs into her pottery. She received an honorable mention at the awards celebration and will study marine biology at college in the fall.

AVA’s Regional High School exhibition is up through Friday, March 21. The show is free to the public. For more information, visit avagallery.org.

Funk and jazz to beat the winter blues at BarnArts

By this time of year, most Upper Valley residents are itching for some levity to disrupt the doldrums of winter. BarnArts offers an answer: its annual Masquerade Jazz & Funk Winter Music Carnival.

Over the course of four hours, musical acts like the Michael Zsoldos Trio and the Woodstock Union High School Jazz Funk Band will take to the stage of the Barnard Town Hall.

The musical extravaganza will be headlined by Afro-funk group Lost Tribe, who hails from Connecticut.

Concert-goers can expect dinner from a taco bar that will serve a selection of non-alcoholic drinks.

The event will also feature a mask-making table and photobooth to keep the whole family entertained.

The concert will take place Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m. For tickets ($25 for adults, $15 for students), or more information, visit barnarts.org or call 802-234-1645.

Junction Dance Festival educates through movement

If Barnard is too far afield, Junction Dance Festival will hold its “Shake the Cabin Fever” fundraiser the same day at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction. The Manchester-based company NSquared Dance will perform their piece “The Lavender Scare,” which reflects on the persecution of LGBTQ+ members of the federal workforce during the mid-20th century.

Ticketholders are encouraged to dress in lavender.

Light refreshments will be available in the lobby of the Briggs, where a raffle will also be held.

For tickets ($35 online, $40 at the door), or more information, visit thejunctiondancefestival. org.

Marion Umpleby can be reached at mumpleby@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.