You know her. You love her. And now you get to hear her song.
“Mrs. Doubtfire” will be bringing its madcap brand of humor and heart to Downtown’s Benedum Center starting Tuesday and running through Sunday. The 1993 comedy classic starring the late Robin Williams as a recently divorced father pretending to be a woman in order to spend time with his kids is now also a stage musical that first hit Broadway in 2021 before launching its North American tour earlier this year.
Tickets for “Mrs. Doubtfire” are available for $38-$135 via trustarts.org. Its principal cast includes Homewood-area native Romelda Teron Benjamin as Mrs. Sellner, protagonist Daniel Hillard’s court-appointed liaison. She’ll be performing back home for the first time in at least 20 years as part of a show that she believes serves as both a rollicking live theater experience and “the perfect love letter to Robin Williams.”
“I think Pittsburgh is going to love it,” Benjamin told the Post-Gazette. “The cast is amazing, there’s great energy and there’s something for everyone.”
Rob McClure reprised his Tony Award-nominated Broadway role of Daniel Hillard/Euphegenia Doubtfire for the inaugural “Mrs. Doubtfire” tour. Daniel transforms into that fake British nanny to hang out with his three children while not violating the divorce terms set by his ex-wife, Miranda, who was played by Sally Field in the movie and will be portrayed by Maggie Lakis — McClure’s real-life wife — at the Benedum.
Earning a spot in the “Mrs. Doubtfire” national tour was a dream come true for Benjamin, a Pittsburgh CAPA graduate who honed her performance skills as a Pittsburgh CLO Mini Star and at the CLO’s Academy of Musical Theater. She’s a huge fan of the movie and was overjoyed upon learning that she would be joining a “Mrs. Doubtfire” production that had been “updated to aspects of today’s world” while “still holding true to the original story.”
Anne Haney’s big-screen version of Mrs. Sellner was the sort of no-nonsense authority figure that Benjamin was unaccustomed to embodying. She usually ends up booking more broadly comic parts and thus felt a bit “out of her element” while determining how a character largely defined by her strait-laced stoicism can still help generate laughs.
Benjamin eventually concluded that Mrs. Sellner must be quite jaded after years of having “to deal with some real loser dads.” The inherent skepticism she brings to her job was the exact kind of energy required to balance McClure’s zaniness as Mrs. Sellner ensures Daniel is responsible enough to remain in his kids’ lives.
“She’s taking no bull, basically,” Benjamin said. “She’s not dealing with the drama. She is in charge, and she’s going to whip Daniel into shape for the sake of the children.”
Daniel is doing his darnedest throughout “Mrs. Doubtfire” to maintain the bond he shares with eldest daughter Lydia (Giselle Gutierrez), middle child Christopher (Cody Braverman) and baby Natalie (Emerson Mae Chan). Gutierrez, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Central Florida, made her professional debut as Lydia in the “Mrs. Doubtfire” tour and will be performing in the Steel City for the first time this week.
The Plant City, Florida, native actually hadn’t seen the original “Mrs. Doubtfire” film until shortly before leaving to attend her callback audition in New York City. She ended up listening to the movie’s soundtrack in advance and thought it was “cool to connect the dots” while discovering how and where each song fit into its overall narrative.
Gutierrez described the “Mrs. Doubtfire” musical as a funny but “very unexpectedly emotional” romp that’s ultimately “just about love.” Lydia is a prime example of that dichotomy as a character tasked with leading lively numbers like the rebellious “What the Hell” while also conveying the toll her parents’ divorce is taking on the youngest Hillards.
“Lydia truly is the third parent to her siblings,” Gutierrez said. “She sees all of this go down, understands it and has to keep the secrets from her mom. ... There’s a lot on her plate, and I think being able to explore the different emotions and feelings she would have because of this was very tricky but fun.”
She always gets a kick out of seeing how theatergoers react to the climactic moment when (spoiler alert?) Miranda finally learns that Mrs. Doubtfire is none other than her slowly evolving ex-husband. Gutierrez has witnessed various audiences laugh, gasp or fall into total silence after that big reveal.
For Benjamin, it’s always glorious to hear entire theaters howling with laughter during the scene in which Mrs. Sellner is none the wiser as Daniel is forced to change back and forth between himself and Mrs. Doubtfire during one of their scheduled visits.
She can’t wait for Pittsburghers to watch her anchor re-creations of iconic “Mrs. Doubtfire” moments like that during her triumphant return to such a prestigious local stage.
“Come see the show if you want to laugh, cry, be entertained and if you want to leave the theater feeling better than how you walked in,” Benjamin said. “I’m happy and emotional to finally be coming home.”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxelburgh.
First Published: November 27, 2023, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: November 27, 2023, 5:35 p.m.