Photo by Hannah Jo Anderson
The Matchmaker (2026) - American Players Theatre
Tracy Michelle Arnold and Triney Sandoval, 'The Matchmaker,' (2026).
Theater by its nature tends to plumb the depths of both intellect and emotion, with the best of the art form drawing the audience into both the narrative and the heart that beats at the center of the production. For the Tony Award-winning American Players Theatre that’s generally business as usual, but every so often a performance takes those elements one step further. It’s fair to say that APT’s production of Madison-born Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Thorton Wilder’s The Matchmaker meets and beats that mark.
The 1954 comedy, a rewrite of Wilder’s earlier play The Merchant of Yonkers, concerns the efforts of Dolly Gallagher Levi (Tracy Michelle Arnold) and her efforts—both covert and overt—to bring together various couples, some of whom don’t even know they want to be together. If that sounds familiar, then know that this and earlier versions of the same narrative by other authors eventually became the hit musical Hello, Dolly!
The storyline will be familiar to fans of drawing room comedies, complete with misunderstandings, mistaken identities, mismatched couples, and even a gender switch, albeit a brief one. The characters in the action, which takes place both in Yonkers and New York City in the early 20th century, are eccentric to a fault, driving the nearly three-hour play down a variety of roads lined with laughter and heart.
Seeking a Suitor?
In short, the story is this: Yonkers merchant Hoarce Vandergelder (a delightfully cranky Triney Sandoval) seeks a suitor for his niece Ermengarde (Kelly Simmons), but one that isn’t the artist Ambrose Kemper (Jonathan Gardner), the young woman’s beau and clearly the right match. In the meantime, Vandergelder decides it’s time to once again marry and leaves for New York City to court the favor of Irene Malloy (Phoebe Gonzalez) while his assistants Conelius Hackl (Colin Covert) and Barnaby Tucker (Trevyn Wong) are left behind to mind the store.
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Well, that was never going to work, at least not with Dolly Levi involved. In the end, they all head to the City, change identities, change partners, hide behind screens, under tables and in closets and, ultimately, follow their hearts that lead to pairing the right partners, and just in time for the curtain call.
Photo by Hannah Jo Anderson.
The Matchmaker (2026) - American Players Theatre
Phoebe González, Triney Sandoval and Tracy Michelle Arnold, 'The Matchmaker,' (2026).
Scenic designer Nathan Stuber does a terrific job turning what starts out as Vandergelder’s Yonkers store then morphs into three other locations. Tracy Dorman’s costume design provides the right turn-of-the-century flavor. The whole thing comes together under the deft hand of director Brian Cowing, who also provides some very insightful production notes in the play’s program.
“There is a line that echoes through this story” ‘Isn’t the world full of wonderful things?’, Cowing writes. “Can we see the wonder, even when it feels distant? Can we choose delight? Can we, like Dolly, throw the doors open and let life rush back in?”
That’s the challenge that Cowing and company make to all the audience members throughout the production. It’s the audience’s choice, but it’s surprisingly easy to get caught up in both the chaos and the charm of APT’s “The Matchmaker.”
American Players Theatre’s production of Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker runs through Oct. 2 Up the Hill at APT’s Spring Green campus. For more information, visit americanplayers.org.
