Never can say goodbye: Syracuse Stage’s ‘The Hello Girls’ is the best musical of 2025

In the theater world, opening night is preceded by previews, public performances that allow cast and crew to fine-tune the show before it’s ‘frozen,’ meaning no more changes can be made. Tickets to previews are often less expensive because performances may still admittedly be rough. At Syracuse Stage, when the musical “The Hello Girls” opened on Friday, three audiences had already seen it: two during previews and one during a show reserved for military veterans.

We’re a small town. We can’t keep our mouths shut.

Thanks to social media, everybody’s a reviewer.

The online buzz has been rapturous. Sensational. Stunning. Awesome.

The same phrase keeps coming up: The best show in years.

Introducing an unknown musical as its 2025-26 season opener, Syracuse Stage seemingly took a risk with “The Hello Girls,” but artistic director Bob Hupp knows what he’s doing. Stage has an irresistible hit on its hands.

The story is captivating and propulsively paced. The characters are thoughtfully differentiated, charming in their unique quirks, and individually compelling. The songs are lush, harmonically complex, diverse and memorable with several that won’t let go—for me it was “The Front.” The set, staging, lighting, sound design, projections, costuming and choreography are fluidly integrated, all executed at such a consistent high quality that they support the show seamlessly.

So this review is a formality—an exercise in amplifying what everyone else is saying without giving away the pleasures of discovering why everyone loves “The Hello Girls.”

Set in World War I, but with the energy and vibe of contemporary Broadway theater, “The Hello Girls” follows five American women who are recruited by the Army to serve overseas as telephone operators.

Chessa Metz (front) with cast members in the Syracuse Stage production of “The Hello Girls.” September 9 – 28, 2025. Photo by Joan Marcus.

The ground war in France, it seems, is hampered by communications problems—dropped calls, too-long holds, and Army-soldier operators who can’t speak French—so legendary war hero General Pershing (Christopher Carl) convinces the Army to post newspaper ‘Help Wanted’ ads for bilingual female operators.

Grace Banker (Chessa Metz), Bell Telephone’s top operator and trainer in New York City, is convinced by her friend and coworker Suzanne Prevot (Storm Lever) to apply. Grace ends up supervising the first wave of operators under the reluctant direction of Lt. Joseph Riser (Sam Simahk), whose reservations regarding his female recruits are all too obvious. Along with Grace and Suzanne, three other standout operators join up: 30-something Bertha Hunt (Jamila Sabares-Klemm) whose soldier husband is overseas; Helen Hill (Alex Humphreys), a wide-eyed farmgirl; and Louise Le Breton (Sophia Anna O’Brien), a 16-year-old French immigrant who lies about her age to qualify. The women, informally known as the Hello Girls, go on to play critical roles on the front lines of combat.

The story is true, drawn from the real lives of Grace and Suzanne, with the other three based on composites of female operators who served in the Army Signal Corps. The creative team of Peter Mills and Cara Reichel first put an earlier Off-Broadway version of the show together in 2018 for the centennial anniversary of the Hello Girls. With music and lyrics by Mills and book co-written by Mills and Reichel, the version at Syracuse Stage adds additional characters and expands the show to include an eight-member orchestra led by music director Alexandra Crosby on keyboards. The creators have likened the show to the Tom Hanks film A League of Their Own, and it has that scrappy quality of women carving out their lives with nerve and verve in an arena typically dominated by men.

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