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Was the search for Dolly a lie? | The truth behind the Dolly Musical casting call drama
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Mickey Jo
So our question of the day is did the Dolly Parton musical lie about the online casting call to find fresh talent for the show? Yes, there is a Dolly Parton musical. Yes, they did an online casting call called the Search for Dolly and yes, the Internet has feelings about it. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic, commentator and content creator here in the uk but I regularly travel over to New York to see as many Broadway shows shows as possible. And one new musical which we can look forward to seeing on Broadway in 2026 is a brand new show all about country music icon Dolly Parton. Icon of the world Dolly Parton. If we are being completely honest now, Dolly is no stranger to Broadway and musical theatre, having written the score for the stage adaptation of the film 9 to 5 in which she of course co starred. 9 to 5 did not have the longest Broadway run, but it's gone on to enjoy a fairly healthy theatrical life worldwide and particularly in the UK and through licensing and community. The theatre productions and many of the songs that she wrote for that show have become staples of the industry, including but not limited to get out and Stay out, the big power ballad in the second act. Dolly as a character and a Persona has also been depicted on stage recently in the new show Here youe Come Again, which was first seen in North America. I believe it premiered at Goodspeed and then again enjoyed a life in the uk, in London and touring around various regional theaters. In that show, Dolly appears as a vision to a young man who is a huge fan of hers and she helps him to get his life back on track with her unique style of inspiration with the two of them performing many of her most iconic songs. But Dolly, an original musical, plans to be something a little different and in many ways a little more straightforward. We have seen many, many, many of these bio jukebox musicals before in which the life and career of a music artist and their story is told on stage in a two act STR using their songs. We've seen this in the likes of Jersey Boys in Beautiful, the Carole King musical in A Beautiful Noise, the Neil diamond musical in the Cher show in Summer, the Donna Summer musical in MJ currently running on Broadway. So many more than I could possibly begin to name, some of which we will talk about later on because there are some parallels with how they're doing Dolly. Now the show, like I said, is set to make its Broadway bow in 2026. Before that, it's having a world premiere regional production. Where else but in Nashville? All of which makes a lot of sense. And they've just recently announced the principal cast for that pre Broadway production, which I will remind you is no guarantee that that will be the cast when they get to Broadway. Stranger things have happened. Looking at you Finding Neverland, Looking at you Thoroughly Modern Millie and all of that is news enough, except for the fact it's been kind of overtaken by something which had been unfolding prior to the cast announcement. Because the show had put out a casting call on social media, they were commencing the search for Dolly across social media and they encouraged people to submit short videos of them performing Dolly Parton material from that 15 finalists were publicly selected and they were given the chance to audition in person for the show's creative team. Where this gets a little bit complicated and where it's elicited a little bit of a backlash is none of those 15 finalists have been chosen to play any of the three different Dolly Partons in the show. I will explain what that means, but in any case, they haven't been cast as Dolly, which isn't to say none of them are going to be in the show. Lots to explain here, as well as a little bit of an explanation as to why people are probably taking this more seriously than they should. But casting calls taking place publicly on social media, arguably as a tool to find fresh talent and arguably really more as a marketing strategy, are something we're seeing more and more of in more shows than just Dolly. So I think the time has finally come to talk about them. And as always, I would love to know what you think. Let me know in the comments section down below what your thoughts are about this whole situation. Are you excited for the show? Do you have tickets to go and see the show? And more to the point, how do you feel about the complex world of open casting calls, and particularly those which take place publicly on social media? In the meantime, here is what I think so here is what happened back on 5th December 2024, which was also the same day that the show was announced. With a special video from Dolly Parton, they announced the search for Dolly hashtag in fact search for Dolly. And while not too much was said at this point, what was said is they were looking for Dollys ages 10 and up, and a select few would get the chance to audition in person for the show's casting director. Eager applicants were encouraged to head to dolly musical.com to upload their audition and use search for Dolly when sharing online. So an open call, an open call which has existed before the days of social media in the theatrical world. And basically what this is, an open call is when performers are able to turn up without having to be officially submitted via their agents. And you, you know, it's one thing for a performer to get representation, it's another thing for them to actually get submitted for a show. It's not as straightforward as you think it might be and it's not always up to the actor. And it's often done when casting teams are looking for undiscovered talent or looking for a wider group of talent or talent from a particular background perhaps. It's also very often synonymous with shows that are looking particularly for young talent. But historically it can also be something of a double edged sword because you have to imagine there are so many performers who are excited about that opportunity community and so they can be hugely over subscribed and there isn't always a guarantee that you will get seen at an open call. I think the Les Mis movie perhaps or Les Mis did something like this a few years ago with various open calls around the country. The, the greatest showman is doing this right now, again with a few open calls around the country potentially because they're looking for performers with very different backgrounds. That's what they've shared about the process. But the critical thing here is that each of these come with no guarantees whatsoever. No guarantee that you will even be on the day. And also no guarantee that this is for a lead role or the starring role. It's just a chance to see the talent and figure out if it might be useful in the show. More often than not anyway. And that's the key thing here about the Search for Dolly is that no promises were ever made, nothing was ever said in writing, no contracts were signed about the fact that whoever won this competition was going to get to star as Dolly in the Dolly musical. What muddies that water just a little bit is the way that it was framed on social media in calling it the Search for Dolly, because that implies a certain something, implies that. I mean, they said we're looking for dollies ages 10 and up. That then becomes a problem. Rather than saying we're looking for performers and again, search for Dolly, it makes it very clear that they seem to be offering the opportunity to play Dolly, but really we've already said exactly what it is that they were offering. They were offering a select few the chance to audition and they did that for 15 finalists. It is kind of wild that they publicly revealed who the 15 finalists were. A bunch of performers with very different backgrounds and different playing ages. Some of them professional Dolly Parton impersonators, at least one of them currently performing as Dolly Parton in the UK tour of Here you come again. I'm talking about the brilliant Tricia Paoluccio, others very talented young performers who are already sort of navigating the early years of their professional careers. They released a little compilation of all of these audition segments and they shared that these were the 15. And if I'm being honest, all of this had already got a little bit messy from what I had seen on TikTok, because people were rooting for their favorites. And not to speak ill of musical theatre fans, because I am one of you, I am among you. And like they say in High School Musical, we are in fact all in this together. But the thing that bothers me sometimes about seeing people play casting director on social media in the comments section wherever, is that it tends to become more about resemblance than anything else. And particularly in the search for Dolly in the comments, it became more about, like, who sounds the most like, who looks the most like. And that's often what social media comments sections value more so than anything else in casting. And that's not the most important aspect of casting. There's something to be said for conjuring the essence of a performer. Yes, when you're playing them in the story of their life, a certain amount of resemblance is important. But they're not just looking for doppelgangers here who can do a Dolly Parton accent. They're looking for someone who can bring something a little different to the stage. Jessie Mueller playing Carole King, very familiar of Carole King, but had her own brilliant energy in different ways that made that performance compelling. It's not just about finding a top quality impressionist. I also noticed a little bit of uncomfortable discourse about people going to other performers comment sections on their audition videos and suggesting that they'd stolen features of someone else or that they were copying someone else's who was more successful. And a lot of people were really rallying behind a couple of individuals. And, you know, it's hard. Going to an open call is hard enough, auditioning is hard enough without posting your video and the search being someone else's name. Search for Dolly and everyone else in the comments being like, this is just the knockoff version of ex performer. Anyway, flash forward to February and they revealed who the 15 finalists chosen to come to New York and audition for the casting director were, and I assume as part of that, those that were not in New York had their travel to New York and their accommodation potentially paid for. So, you know, even if nothing else was to come of it, that's a fun trip to have. But thereafter, we didn't hear anything else until yesterday when they announced the three performers who would be playing Dolly. And I'll explain why there are three in just a moment. But the headline news here is that they are all established musical theatre performers, none of whom were the 15 finalists as part of the search for Dolly. And people cottoned onto the reality that this was a marketing tactic. And some people said Dolly had already been cast. Dolly was always cast and they were never going to hire anyone from the search for Dolly. And that's not necessarily true because as part of a distributed press release, they did mention that two, count them, two of the actresses from the hashtag search for Dolly had been cast to be understudies in the show. They haven't released the full cast, so we don't actually know which two it was, which is, again, just fascinating. But I have a lot of thoughts about this as well. But let's talk a little bit more about how the role of Dolly is working in this production and also what I think of this as a tactic, as a marketing deploy, as a legitimate casting method, whichever it may be. So, in this production, there are to be three actresses sharing the role of Dolly Parton. They are Katie Rose Clarke of the recent Merrily We Roll along revival on Broadway, Carrie St. Louis, most recently seen off Broadway as Rose in Titanique, and Quinn Titcombe, who is a young performer who I am not familiar with, but I have some information here in a press release. Quinn made her professional acting debut at just five years old. Yes, they start them young as Lulu in the Broadway national tour of Waitress, and since then has enjoyed a successful career both on stage and on screen, including the Broadway national tours of Les Miserables as Little Cassette, Young Eponine, Harvest Girl. That's not a track I was familiar with until now. How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Sound of Music and regional productions of Frozen and Fun Home can also be seen. Oh, and Theatre Camp. I love Theatre Camp, essentially has worked far more than many other performers that you may know. I'm telling you, these child performers, they have so many credits before they graduate high school, it's amazing. Anyway, they are each going to portray Dolly Parton at different stages of her life. We have seen this before. We have seen this in Summer, the Donna Summer musical. We have seen this in the Cher show, and it's a way of sharing what would be a hugely challenging role, but also of more accurately depicting these iconic women at different times in their life. You can go one of two routes here, and you can either split it into young versus older versus older, or you can have one performer attempt to age down and then attempt to age up, which is never going to feel quite as convincing. It's always going to feel a little more theatrical, which maybe works for the story that you're telling. But it's certainly a very popular idea to split them into three, particularly with these bio musicals about iconic female singers. My fear is that this kind of does already brand the Dolly show a little bit as just another jukebox musical using this same approach. And it kind of feels like another summer, another Cher show. But that actually may not be their biggest hurdle to overcome. My concern with this show is the title. Now, originally, when it was first announced, it was going to be called hello, I'm Dolly, which I thought was just a play on hello, Dolly. It turns out it was also the name of a Dolly Parton album, one which was released in 1967. Was that a nod to the 1964 musical hello, Dolly? I don't know. In any case, I think it was a smart choice to pivot away from hello, I'm Dolly because otherwise, you know, it was constantly going to be compared to. It couldn't really stand on its own. It would feel like, you know, a take on that. Like you don't want the title of your show to be a pun on the title of another show. I can think of very few exceptions where that's been successful. I mean, Xana don't is the only one that's really occurring to me right now. Spamilton, as a parody show, Schmigadoon, I guess, did considerably better by punning on Brigadoon, but Brigadoon, I would argue, not as known. And there was such an amount of time between the two of them and hello, Dolly because, you know, film adaptation revived far more often, continues to be more well known and more talked about than Brigadoon. And if you had hello, Dolly and hello, I'm Dolly, they would constantly be next to each other on every single, like, libretto shelf over at the drama bookshop. Like, on all listings of shows, they would, like, be next to each other their entire lives until the end of time. The problem is, I think, think Dolly as in Dolly Levi, the lead character of hello, Dolly, is still causing Dolly as in Dolly Parton problems here, because now it's called Dolly, an original musical. That is the new title that they have gone with here. And if you lop the end of that off, it's just called Dolly. And you know that when this has been auditioning and in workshops, when performers have been saying to each other, oh, are you going in for Dolly? That someone's going to think they're talking about hello, Dolly. Like, oh, have you seen, like, Dolly's announced it's coming to Broadway. Someone's gonna be like, they're bringing hello, Dolly back to Broadway. No, they're talking about Dolly and original the Dolly part. I think the Parton needs to be in there because as soon as you say Dolly Parton, you don't think about hello, Dolly. You don't think about Dolly Levi. Dolly Parton is probably the most famous Dolly that there is, but not in the context of Broadway, not in the context of the musical. And if you just call the show Dolly, they already call hello, Dolly Dolly. It's there in the lyrics of Merrily We Roll along when he sings, folks. It's funny girl. Fiddler and Dolly combined. Anyway, that tangent aside, let's talk about the possibility that this had always been cast and the snippet of information that I had heard about this. Now, I gather that Carrie St. Louis had already been attached to the show in a workshop capacity. I saw a comment about this just yesterday because there are many comments on the post of the cast announcement because people have strong feelings that they aren't using any of the 15 finalists. And someone said Carrie St. Louis had posted a picture with Dolly months ago. So clearly she's been cast for ages. And the reality is that she did the workshop. She was attached to the workshop. The production that's upcoming is a world premiere, which means workshops have already taken place. These are developmental readings and private performances of the show in, like, rehearsal rooms for producers, for the show's creatives, just while the show is built. And Carrie St. Louis, I gather, had been attached during that process. However, Katie Rose Clark is not the name that I was hearing as playing the oldest of the three Dollies during this time. I actually heard that it was Kelly O'Hara, which was already a little bit of a surprise. Which Broadway star has talked about playing Dolly for years very publicly and wanting to be involved in this and wanting to bring a Dolly musical to Broadway. Kristin Chenoweth, huge Broadway name. Kristin Chenoweth set to return to Broadway later this year in the Queen of Versailles. And perhaps that very show, which is Opening this fall at the St. James is the reason why she couldn't end up doing the Dolly musical. And it wouldn't be the first sort of parallel moment in Kristen and Kelly's careers. I believe they had the same voice coach, Katy Rose Clarke, though. I'm very excited about in this role. I'd heard the Kelly O'Hara was workshopping it. I don't know if she then became unavailable or they moved in a different direction or if that was never true in the first place. What's interesting is that the show is being directed by Bartlett Sher, who, among many other things, directed the Light in the Piazza, which originally starred Kelly O'Hara, who went on to also play the same role during that production's lifetime. Katie Rose Clark. So we've gone from one Clara to another. It is worth remembering, though, that this is the cast for Nashville. They have not confirmed that this is the cast who are going Broadway. And like we saw before, with Jeremy Jordan doing Fighting Neverland, it doesn't mean that they're going to reprise those performances when the show transfers in 2026. It could be Kelly O'Hara, after all. Something very strange could happen and it could be Kristin Chenoweth. I don't anticipate that happening, but you never know. Anyway, whether or not the show had been precast, it has now been cast and they have said, Let me read you the actual wording around this. The producers would like to express their gratitude to the thousands of people who submitted themselves as part of the national search for dolly, especially the 15 actors selected to travel to New York for in person auditions. And they are thrilled to announce that two actors from the search have been cast to join the Nashville company of Dolly, an original musical. Complete casting and design team for the production will be announced in the coming weeks and I will be watching with intrigue to see which two it was. And I don't think they actually sit said understudy. Did I say understudy? Have they said that publicly anywhere? I think that may have been lost in translation a little bit. And people have now assumed that they were casting them to be the understudies for Dolly rather than the principals, which people have a bad habit of seeing as subordinate. And I get it because, you know, you have the principal perform and you have the understudy. And based on casting, you know, in a very traditional sense, in like a high school theater sense, you're going to cast the best person as the lead and cast the second best as the understudy. It doesn't Always work that way because more often than not in musical theater, the performers who do the understudy tracks are doing ensemble tracks that the principal performer couldn't necessarily do. But I also think this is not the worst thing in the world. I think for many of those performers, the chance to be in the Broadway bound Dolly musical is exciting enough. And, you know, many of them had extensive professional experience. These were not all newcomers being plucked off the street and being taken from completely different jobs, which I think is the story that people really like to see. See when they do these open calls, when they do these nationwide searches. You like to see someone given this opportunity who hadn't had the chance to go to drama school, hadn't had the chance to have an agent, whatever it may be. The issue is to play Dolly in a Broadway bound big new musical about her life, even as one of three performers sharing that role. It's a huge responsibility. It's an awful lot for someone to do and it's a huge requirement. And I think it would be a little irresponsible, honestly, to cast someone from this open call and then give them such a huge role. And so to give someone an ensemble track and let them be part of the company, maybe an understudy role as part of that, I think makes a lot more sense. Of course, it would also be preferable if they had been super clear about that being the plan from the beginning. But you never know. They may have been open to the idea of finding a principal performer from that casting call, but, you know, that's just not what ended up happening. Happening. We saw something similar happen with the recent Non Replica UK tour of the musical Dear Evan Hansen. They did a casting call via social media also Ambassador Theatre Group Productions, worth pointing out. And they cast, I believe, one young performer from that who alternates the role of Evan Hansen on the show's tour, or at the very least, understudies Ryan Copel. And again, I think when that was announced, some people were a little disgruntled that, you know, they weren't getting principal Evan Hansen. But what a huge, demanding role Evan Hansen is for a very young performer who may not have as much traditional training and experience, which is not to say that they couldn't handle it, but, you know, it's a really big ask, particularly for young people. It's a big emotional challenge, it's a big vocal challenge, It's a big, you know, the physical challenge in terms of the stamina to play that part on stage. And it's not like the chance to be in a professional touring production or in a pre Broadway musical, as is the case with Dolly, isn't an exciting opportunity as well. It's like entering a competition to win a first class four flight and a penthouse suite trip to New York and then finding out that you're actually only going to be getting an economy flight and a standard hotel room. Like it's not, not exciting. It's not the thing that they made it seem like it might be, which was like beyond your wildest dreams. But it doesn't mean it's not still a dream. And I feel like that is everything that I have to say about the situation. And you know, as a marketing ploy, it works. The real thing that I think we should do here is bring back the TV casting shows. There were a couple in the, there were a few in the uk. I think that's what the people really crave. I think that's what this TikTok generation who got so excited by seeing all the different submissions and being like, oh, I want to follow their journey and hope that they get it and root for them. I think A, people just miss Smash TV smash. That is not Broadway smash because that's not really the plot of the, of the Broadway show. And B, I think people would really love those like bring back like the Legally Blonde search for L. Woods style casting shows. We got a lot of great talent out of those, particularly here in the uk. The uk. So many brilliant performers came through those, through those casting shows and they weren't perfect either, but they gave these huge platforms to these very talented performers which hopefully is something that the hashtag Search for Dolly has also been able to do. I'll be very intrigued to see this show's further steps as we head towards its world premiere production in Nashville. I'll let you know the dates of when that's going to be happening, if that is within travel distance for any of you or if you're huge Dolly Parton fans and you're eager to go and see it. It's just announced a two week extension to this limited ENG engagement due to overwhelming demand. But it is of course hoping to head to Broadway thereafter. Why can I not find when this is happening? Here we go. July 18th to August 31st, 2025, this very summer at the Fisher center for the Performing Arts in Nashville, Tennessee. I mean, who doesn't love Dolly Parton? It's great music. She has this fascinating story. She's been a little bit mysterious about some aspects of her life and her backstory. I wonder if this will be, you know, a little less honest, a little more theatrical and contrived or I won wonder if there are going to be revelations in this that we've never really heard before. I'm excited. I'm excited to hear more about the Dolly musical. I'm excited to find out which of those two performers got this opportunity to be part of the show. And if you're sad for any of the other performers, then, you know, go and support them. At least one of them is a Dolly Parton impersonator who, as part of this process, got herself a visa. She's UK based, got herself a visa to work and tour around the US for the first time. So if you want to go and see her perform as Dolly Parton, you have the chance to do that. They're all very talented and I'm sure, sure it's going to be a great show. In the meantime, those have been my thoughts about the casting call controversy. I really don't think it was that controversial, to be honest. And maybe next time this happens, we'll all, you know, kind of see through it a little more and understand that this is probably a marketing opportunity and that a couple of performers who maybe already have a lot of professional credits anyway might get the chance to be seen and something good might come out of it for a minority of people. But for the vast majority, you know, that just participate in a marketing exercise. Anyway, those are all my thoughts, as always. I would love to hear yours in the comments section down below. What do we think about Dolly? An original musical and the hashtag search for Dolly. Let me know. And thank you so much for listening to this video. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Minky Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey Day. Subscribe.