Tony Award-winning Bartlett Sher is set to direct the recently announced Hello, I’m Dolly, a new musical inspired by the life and career of Dolly Parton. The icon, Parton, recently announced from the stage of the CMA Fest in Nashville, that she will partner with ATG Productions to bring the musical to Broadway in 2026.
Produced by Parton, Adam Speers for ATG Productions, and Danny Nozell for CTK Enterprises, the new musical borrows its title from the name of Parton’s first studio album released in 1967. Hello, I’m Dolly will feature a score by Parton that will include some of her biggest hits as well as new songs she has written especially for the musical, and a book by Parton and Maria S. Schlatter.
Dolly Parton said, “How lucky I am to have the great Bartlett Sher direct my Hello, I’m Dolly musical. 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.”
Bartlett Sher commented, “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.”
For news and updates on Hello, I’m Dolly, please sign up at www.helloimdolly.com
BIOGRAPHIES
Dolly Parton is the most honored and revered multi-hyphenate of all time and was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her current album Rockstar made history by scoring the biggest album debut sales week of her seven-decade career and earning her six #1s on the Billboard charts – Top Rock Albums, Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Country Albums, Top Album Sales, Top Current Album Sales, and Independent Albums. The landmark album also claimed the #3 spot on the Billboard 200 chart, her highest position ever. Achieving 27 RIAA-certified gold, platinum, and multi-platinum awards, she has had 26 songs reach #1 on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist. Parton is the first artist to have topped Billboard’s Adult Contemporary, Christian AC Songs, Hot Country Songs, Christian Airplay, Rock Digital Songs, Country Airplay, and Dance/Mix Show Airplay radio charts. Parton became the first country artist honored as Grammy MusiCares Person of the Year given out by NARAS. She has 49 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and 120 career-charted singles over the past 50+ years. On October 17, 2023, she released her second New York Times Best Seller coffee table book in a trilogy called Behind The Seams: My Life in Rhinestones. The first of the series was bestselling coffee table book Songteller: My Life in Lyrics.
In 2014, the RIAA recognized her impact on recorded music with a plaque commemorating more than 100 million units sold worldwide. She has amassed 11 Grammy Awards and 52 nominations, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, 10 Country Music Association Awards, including Entertainer of the Year; five Academy of Country Music Awards, also including a nod for Entertainer of the Year; four People’s Choice Awards; and three American Music Awards. In 1999, Parton was inducted as a member of the coveted Country Music Hall of Fame.
Parton has the largest fan base of all measured music artists in the YouGov database at #1 with 198 million. She has the #1 Q Score of all performers, solo and group. She is one of only 25 celebrities in the E-poll database to have an E-score of 100 and has maintained that perfect rating for 8 years. She recently won Best Brand Award, Celebrity, Influencer and Fashion at the 2023 Licensing International Excellence Awards.
To date, Parton has donated over 242 million books to children around the world with her Imagination Library. Her children’s book, Coat of Many Colors, was dedicated to the Library of Congress to honor the Imagination Library’s 100 millionth book donation. In March 2022, Parton released the book Run Rose Run which she co-authored with James Patterson which sat at # 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers List for five weeks, a record for this decade. She also released an accompanying album of the same name with original songs inspired by the book which reached #1 on three charts simultaneously – Country, Americana/Folk and Bluegrass Albums. From her “Coat of Many Colors” while working “9 to 5,” no dream is too big and no mountain too high for the country girl who turned the world into her stage.
Nominated for the Tony Award nine times, he took home the prize in 2008 for his powerful revival of South Pacific.
Sher’s early career included residencies all over the world, under the guidance of such extraordinary artists as Garland Wright, Robert Woodruff, and Peter Hall. In 2000, he arrived at the Intiman Theater in Seattle, where he served as the Artistic Director until 2009.
During his time working in a regional theater, he directed over twenty plays by Shakespeare, and immersed himself in the classics. His Cymbeline was the first American production of a Shakespeare play presented at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. Sher’s first Broadway production was the 2005 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, Bart 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 Corruption,Lerner & Lowe’s Camelot, Intimate Apparel, Blood and Gifts, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
On Broadway, Bart has directed such shows as 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 on Broadway, which became the best-selling American play in Broadway history.
In the world of opera, Bart has directed both new work and classics at some of the most prestigious opera houses in the world, including La Scala, the English National Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Chicago, Seattle, the Berlin Staatsoper, Baden Baden, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He will direct the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for the Met in their 2025-2026 season.
His film of Oslo premiered on HBO in 2021 and was nominated for two Emmy Awards and won a Critics Choice Award.
His most recent work is the hit 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.
