April 1, 2025
RESPECT: This One’s For the Girls
Makes Hudson Valley Debut
Rosendale Theatre in Rosendale, NY provided the venue for the Hudson Valley debut of RESPECT: This One’s For the Girls. The event took place March 28-29-31, and was a sold-out performance with glowing reviews! The audience was electrified by the show and the actors. So many people said it was the best musical or play they’ve seen.
Testimonials & Accolades
“Hi, My name is Rich. I am so glad I came out tonight. The show was fabulous. It drew me in right from the first tune – right from the get-go. Fabulous music. The characters suck you right in. The band was great and the book is fabulous! The story – the plot – I’m so glad I came. Thank you so much.” ###
“Hey, I thought the singers were really wonderful! They were all totally in character and they had great voices and displayed quite a versatility. All kinds of songs from the 30s on. It’s a really great show. Come down and see it!” ###
“I loved it so much. Thank you so much for being here. And I related to so much and I could not NOT sing!” ###
“I just found it an amazing retrospective. It was so beautiful and such a tribute to women. And thank you, thank you so much for putting this together the way you did. Such an honor. Thank you.” ###
“This is absolutely brilliant! I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight. It made my heart happy as hell. Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! The girls are brilliant – the band is brilliant – the concept is great. Thank you!” ###
“We loved the show. That was an amazing show. It was such an amazing show.” ###
“Oh, I’m loving it. The singers are wonderful. And it’s put together beautifully. And it’s such a funny, poignant, and uplifting show.” ###
“It was meaningful to me, as the youngest of six sisters and a mother who was nothing but a wonderful performer of all music from all of the genres that you presented in the play. So it was a great journey.” ###
“It was awesome. The sixties – it brought back everything that the women went through and thank you so much for portraying it so well.” ###
The audience erupted in enthusiasm in a number of places, including the phone scene when a girl is waiting by the phone, desperately, for her guy to call, and then she wants to die when he doesn’t. Dramatic and lots of fun.
A talkback after the show encouraged people to ask playwright Dr. Dorothy Marcic how she got the idea for the show, how difficult was it to do the research, what was the process in choosing the songs, and so on. A very lively discussion ensued.
The show will now move to the Phoenicia Playhouse and will be performed during the first two weekends in April.
Cast
Rebecca Brown Adelman, Ailegra Coons, Heather Roland-Blanco, and Lydia Pidlusky made up the talented ensemble for Respect: This One’s For the Girls. Their talent and charisma were on full display during the performance, to the delight of the audience.
Putting Together the Show
by Dorothy Marcic
We’ve been working for almost a year getting the partnerships in place to present RESPECT at two different theaters in Upstate New York.
First there was Ovi Vargas. I went to the Phoenicia Playhouse to see a play my friend Shelley Wyant recommended. It was Wait Until Dark. and it was breathtaking, directed by the former artistic director at that theater. During intermission, I looked through the cast bios and saw Ovi Vargas, who had been in How to Bury a Saint at the Schoolhouse Theater in Croton. That was my friend Janice Maffei’s wonderful play and I remembered Ovi in it. After the show, I waited for Ovi to come out and we talked about how great Janice’s play was, and how he had just been appointed artistic director at the Phoenicia Playhouse. We traded cards and stayed in touch.
Ovi started introducing me around, and one of the people I felt an instant connection with was Ann Citron, Artistic Consultant at Rosendale Theater. The three of us talked about bringing my musical RESPECT upstate and having it go “on tour” between the two theaters. It took a while for the boards to approve, to bring on choreographer Liz Piccoli (who I had known in New York City, through an organization of women producers) and to get contracts in place, to audition and more contracts and then rehearsals.
As I write this, it is only a few hours to opening night at Rosendale Theater. The cast and crew have worked so hard and the show looks wonderful. I can’t wait to see it in front of an audience. Though it’s played thousands of performances in over 100 cities, each time is new and exciting.
