EXCLUSIVE: Bartlett Sher, nine-time Tony Award directing nominee and winner for 2008’s South Pacific, will direct the recently announced Dolly Parton musical Hello, I’m Dolly, set for Broadway in 2026.
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“How lucky I am to have the great Bartlett Sher direct my Hello, I’m Dolly musical,” Parton said in a statement. “When you decide to put your whole life up on stage, you hope and pray to find the right director with the right creativity and sensitivity to present all the blood, sweat, tears, light, love, and laughter that I’ve experienced over seven decades of living. My heart tells me that Bartlett is the man and the director for the job.”
Said Sher, “Dolly is one of the great songwriters in the American canon, and being entrusted with the opportunity to help her translate that glorious talent into the American musical theater is not only an honor, but absolutely a thrill. As a young man growing up in San Francisco, I was a huge fan of the Grateful Dead. Their favorite vocal artist was Dolly Parton, and so is mine.”
Produced by Parton, Adam Speers for ATG Productions, and Danny Nozell for CTK Enterprises, the new musical takes its title from Parton’s debut 1967 studio album. The production will feature a score by Parton including her hits as well as new songs she has written especially for the musical. She’ll write the book with Maria S. Schlatter.
Parton recently announced the project from the stage of the CMA Fest in Nashville.
Following work in regional theater and residencies all over the world, Sher made his Broadway debut in 2005 with the world premiere of The Light in the Piazza by Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas, which garnered him his first Tony nomination.
Soon after, he became the Resident Director of Lincoln Center Theater, a position he has held ever since. While at LCT, Sher has received Tony Award nominations for his productions of My Fair Lady, Oslo, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I, Golden Boy, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Awake and Sing!, and The Light in the Piazza. His other LCT productions include the recent Corruption , Lerner & Lowe’s Camelot, Intimate Apparel, Blood and Gifts, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
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Sher’s other Broadway credits include Pictures from Home, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Bridges of Madison County . In 2018, he directed Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird , which became the best-selling American play in Broadway history. In all, he’s been nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning for Best Direction of a Musical for the 2008 Broadway revival of South Pacific.
His most recent work is the revival of Kiss Me, Kate , now running in London at the Barbican Theater. Upcoming work includes the stage adaptation of the movie-musical La La Land and the world premiere of a new Ayad Akhtar play, McNeal , starring Robert Downey Jr. at Lincoln Center this fall. He will direct the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for the Metropolitan Opera in the 2025-2026 season. His film of Oslo premiered on HBO in 2021 and was nominated for two Emmy Awards.
ATG Productions is the producing and general management arm of ATG Entertainment. Current and upcoming productions include Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club , the West End and upcoming Broadway revival Sunset Boulevard starring Nicole Scherzinger; and the recent productions of Plaza Suite starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, A Doll’s House starring Jessica Chastain, and, on the West End, A Streetcar Named Desire starring Paul Mescal.
ATG Productions recently teamed with Parton on the West End and touring staging of her 2009 Broadway musical Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 .
CTK Enterprises is a global talent management company headquartered in Nashville.
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