Starting with the Revolutionary War, women have served the armed services of the United States, often as non-military auxiliaries such as nurses, but even as combatants, when a few brave women disguised themselves as men.  The first official female induction into the US military occurred in World War I when the Navy recruited thousands of women for stateside clerical duty to release men to combat.

Simultaneously, the Army recruited women to serve in war zones, but their classification as military or contractors would be contested for decades.  The need was for women who had telephone operator skills and who spoke adequate French to serve in the Signal Corps of General John J. Pershing’s Expeditionary Forces to provide needed communication and translation between the American military and French operators and operatives.

These patriotic and courageous women became known as “The Hello Girls,” and their story is memorialized in the Peter C. Mills and Cara Reichel stage musical of the same name which was nominated for numerous Off-Broadway awards.  Ross Valley Players offers a heartfelt and charming rendition of this largely unknown but significant story.

The action is based on the experiences of five of the first wave of Hello Girls led by Grace Banker who was designated as chief of the unit.  Monica Rose Slater portrays Grace who not only has to manage the girls’ professionalism but must act as the boundary spanner between them and her boss, Lt. Riser (Nelson Brown), who, along with many other men in the unit, can’t fully accept women as having equal competence as men.  Yet Grace always wins the day with efficiency that the men can’t match.

Meanwhile, the women who are stationed at Expedition Headquarters in Chaumont, France are itching to get to the front lines but held back by sexism.  Grace handles the conflicts with her superiors and subordinates well, and Slater displays excellent acting and a fine singing voice in the depiction.  The girls, who are gung-ho, are led by multi-talented Grace Margaret Craig as Suzanne and Jaqueline Lee as Louise.  Both act and sing well in their roles.  But further, like some other cast members who must also play musical instruments in some songs, they play the cello and violin with competence respectively.

Another plus is that the French accents are very convincing.  Credit dialect coach John Rustan.  All of the girls have smatterings of dialog in French, but in addition, Louise was born in France and has a French accent in English.

The narrative moves along energetically through 22 well defined scenes, starting with the candidates’ selection process in New Jersey, going through transition and ultimately proving themselves over the many conflicts that they confront with their own comrades.  Toward the end of the war, the girls’ unit engages in the brutal Meuse-Argonne Offensive, witnessed by the telling song “The Lost Battalion.”  The performance concludes with a historical epilog and honoring veterans in the audience with snippets of theme songs from each of the branches.  Four of us, all looking like Viet Nam era vets, rose on cue to The Army Goes (better known as The Caissons Go) Rolling Along.

Musically, virtually all scenes are adorned with song.  From the opening “Answer the Call” and “Connected,” they are melodic, often with delicate harmonies.  They also bounce and drive the plot forward and are replete with appealing lyrical overlaps, counterpoint, and mini-rondo.  In an important song, “Twenty,” Grace enumerates 20 reasons why The Hello Girls are needed at the front.  Very much in the modern Broadway style, a few tunes sound like Company and Follies era Sondheim.  The female leads deliver nice versions of all of their singing parts, while the remaining performers are somewhat uneven.

It is really pleasing to be able to enjoy a production like this.  Although violence and death abound in the play beyond the stage, and a sexism somewhat born of social innocence does pervade, it is still a feel-good musical about the success and progress of women.  We now live in an era in which media coverage of our uniformed public servants often accurately shows them as perpetrators of violence and enemies of democratic process, from police to ICE killing and terrorizing defenseless people.  The chapter of The Hello Girls tells of our history about fighting the good fight and the good guys winning.

In addition to being a plug for women’s rights, the playwrights conspicuously inject an anti-war message into the plot.  Rather gratuitously, a German soldier is taken as a prisoner-of-war, and he is happy with his new status.  In characterizing the premises to war, he notes that countries’ leaders tell lies to the general public and to the military (e.g., you are better dead than taken prisoner by the enemy) that are designed to stir hatred for people from other countries and cultures.  Belief in those lies triggers animosity toward outsiders and fuels the willingness to engage in war at the behest of the privileged class.

The action and movement under Director Maeve Smith’s guidance ensures that the pace is brisk and that interest does not wane.  This is a worthy production concerning these important events in American military history and the evolution of civil rights for all.

The Hello Girls with music, lyrics, and book by Peter C. Mills and book by Cara Reichel is produced by Ross Valley Players and is performed at The Barn Theatre of Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Ross, CA through March 1, 2026.