9 TO 5 Musical at Stray Dog Theatre Review

– By Cate Marquis –

Stray Dog Theatre’s “9 to 5” is a crowd-pleasing musical comedy that returns to 1979 to join three ambitious business women as they cope with their sexist boss and strive to break that glass ceiling to reach success – or at least decent workplace treatment. It is a comedy about friendship, woman-power and revenge on that egotistical sexist boss, filled with farcical shenanigans and Dolly Parton songs.

Yes, all the songs were written by Dolly Parton, for this musical with a book by Patricia Resnick, and based on the hit 1980 movie, which starred Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. Stray Dog’s production is directed by Justin Been, features some fun lighting effects by lighting designer Tyler Duenow and set by scenic designer Rob Lippert.

The show starts (and ends) with a video of Dolly Parton, projected above the stage, introducing the story. It is followed by a production number of her famous “9 to 5” song, as the cast wake up and head off to work. At the office of Consolidated Companies, nervous newly hired secretary Judy Bernly (Mara Bollini, in the Jane Fonda role) is met by top secretary, Violet Newstead (Jennelle Gilreath Owens, in the Lily Tomlin role). Judy flubs her typing test, and confesses to Violet that she has no experience but is desperate for a job after her husband left her for his secretary. Kind-hearted Violet, a widow with a teenage boy, takes pity on Judy and agrees to teach her the ropes.

Violet is head secretary and, with more than a decade at the company, is up for promotion to office manager, a position for which she is by far the most qualified. Yet whether the boss will give her the job or it will go with one of the less-qualified “boys” is the big question.

The boss is Franklin Hart (Joel Garrett Brown, in the Dabney Coleman role), a man who the overworked, disrespected, underpaid secretaries in his office describe as a “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” who calls the women in the office “girls” and is prone to chase the prettier ones around his desk. His hyper-loyal executive assistant is Roz Keith (a very funny Laura Lee Kyro), an older bulldog of a woman, who is the office “spy” and who secretly longs for the boss to chase her around his desk.

One of the secretaries, blonde Doralee (Sarah Polizzi, in the Dolly Parton role), who has been chased around that desk, gets the cold shoulder from the others, because she is the one Mr. Hart most often calls into the office to take dictation and rumors fly. Unaware of the rumors, their treatment puzzles Doralee, who is married, to Dwayne (Josh Heffernan), and has so far managed to elude Franklin in his chases, unbeknownst to the other secretaries.

The story generally follows the same plot as the movie, with a few changes. The three women bond as friends and eventually find themselves in an unexpected position where they are forced to take action against their awful boss (who turns out to also be an embezzler), in a wild farcical situation straight out of their daydreams of revenge.

The show has plenty of song and dance numbers, eighteen actually, and an eleven-piece band on stage, almost concealed behind a backdrop wall with the sliding doors of the elevator. All those songs make the show a bit long. All those musicians make the stage a bit crowded, and the cast sometimes stand in front of the stage, or in the aisles, for dance numbers to back-up the featured singer. The set is minimal, with props and pieces like desks, chairs and more carried on and off stage by the cast for scene changes. It gives the show a kind of busy feel but it didn’t seem to bother the audience.

The cast are great, with Mara Bollini as Judy, Jennelle Gilreath Owen as Violet and Sarah Polizzi as Doralee, each making the parts their own, although Polizzi can’t avoid paying homage to Dolly Parton (nor would the audience want that). In the movie, the big comedy role falls to the boss character, and Joel Garrett Brown is very funny as smug, obnoxious, sexist Franklin Hart. But some of the comedy thunder is stolen by Laura Lee Kyro, as Hart’s obsessed, lovesick assistant, a part Kyro milks beautifully for all the laughs in her featured numbers “Heart to Hart” and “5 To 9.” Other standout songs are the ones that spring from the women friends’ pot-smoking night together, Judy’s noir-ish “Dance of Death,” Doralee’s “Cowgirl’s Revenge” and Violet’s poison-themed “Potion Notion,” where they fantasize about getting revenge on Hart.

Voices are also good. Periodically, the action stops so the cast breaks out into song, with whole-cast production numbers alternating with solos, often with supporting cast members adding dance routines. It is all very much in the spirit of fun, and with a nostalgic slant to the 1979 time period, when administrative assistants were called secretaries, desks had typewriters instead of computers and phones were wired into the wall instead of in your pocket. And bosses calling women girls and openly treating them like children was pretty common.

The show wraps up all the story threads nicely at the end, and gives Dolly Parton fans an extra treat with the projection of another short video of her summing up the musical.

“9 To 5” packs in a lot of music and comic fun in its trip back to 1979, with its pleasing “woman-power” tale and a bit of sweet revenge on a nasty boss. It is little wonder this show has been such a hit with audiences, who might be fans of the movie or of Dolly Parton’s still-irresistible hit song “9 to 5.”

Stray Dog Theatre’s production of “9 To 5” is on stage at the Tower Grove Abbey theater, 2336 Tennesee Ave., through Apr. 25, 2026.

© Cate Marquis