Anette Barrios-Torres is Eliza in 'My Fair Lady' coming to The Hanover Theatre

When Anette Barrios-Torres auditioned for the role of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle in the Broadway national tour of the musical "My Fair Lady," it was "a bit of a long shot," she acknowledged. But it was also a "dream role."

A bilingual Cuban-American artist and performer from Miami, Barrios-Torres had just graduated last May with a major in Musical Theater and a minor in Spanish from Oklahoma City University. The auditioning for "My Fair Lady" was all done by Zoom at a whirlwind pace when she was home in Miami.

However, to borrow a little bit from the musical ... By George, she got it!

Barrios-Torres will be playing Eliza when "My Fair Lady," with with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, comes to The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts for a five-performance run Feb. 16 to 18 as part of the Hanover Theater's 2023-24 Broadway Series. The tour is the Broadway revival produced by Lincoln Center Theater and Nederlander Presentations Inc. that ran at the Vivian Beaumont Theater from 2018-19. The show is directed by Bartlett Sher, a 1981 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross who has won wide acclaim for his productions.

"I booked the role two weeks after graduating from college. I was just flabbergasted that it happened in the most beautiful and serendipitous way," Barrios-Torres said during a recent telephone interview when "My Fair Lady" was in Pittsburgh. The Feb. 16 to 18 shows will be her first time in Worcester.

The show had initially started touring in 2019 but was suspended due to the pandemic. The production most recently toured in 2022-23, took a break for the summer, and then resumed touring for the 2023-24 season. Most of the principal cast members returned for this season, but the role of Eliza was open.

Barrios-Torres had done some professional theater at the Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City including "Carousel" with musical director and conductor David Andrews Rogers.

Serendipitously, Rogers is also the musical director and conductor for the tour of "My Fair Lady."

"He reached out and said 'I would really love for you to audition,'" Barrios-Torres recalled. Soon she was conversing with Sher about being cast. "From start to finish, from first audition to final call back — 36 hours," she said. "It was absurd, and for it to have happened on Zoom a little bit unheard of."

But Barrios-Torres was no stranger to the role or the musical. Indeed, "Eliza was my hero growing up. It was a story I was extremely familiar with," she said.

'I had the movie on repeat'

"My Fair Lady" is based on a 1938 film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play "Pygmalion." Eliza is raucously selling flowers in London's Covent Garden market when the phoneticist Professor Henry Higgins hears her Cockney dialect and speech and is appalled by what he thinks is its vulgarity. But he makes a bet with fellow linguist Colonel Pickering that if he gave her elocution lessons for six months he could have her speaking like a proper English lady. Eliza, who wants to better herself and have her own flower shop, willingly becomes part of the Higgins household and the experiment/wager. Higgins is a confirmed bachelor whose speech tutoring is tyrannical. But after he succeeds in transforming her speech, what is going to happen next? There is plenty of humor as it all unfolds, but Shaw was an astute observer of social situations and society which the musical version retains to a degree.

Meanwhile, the musical features such classic numbers as “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “The Rain in Spain,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” and “On the Street Where You Live.”

The initial Broadway production opened in 1956 and won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Julie Andrews played Eliza and Rex Harrison was Henry Higgins. The movie adaptation came out 60 years ago in 1964 (there are screenings currently taking place to mark the anniversary) and won eight Academy Awards. Audrey Hepburn played Eliza (Marni Nixon sang her songs on the soundtrack) and Harrison was again Higgins.

Barrios-Torres said that as a child Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn were her heroes. Fascinated with old Hollywood films, she would spend hours acting out classic movie scenes in her room at her family home in Miami.

That certainly included "My Fair Lady." "I had the movie on repeat in my room as a kid. I remember sitting on the floor in my room and inviting friends to watch it," she said.

Her first audition number was "Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” in middle school. She was a student at New World School of the Arts, a public magnet high school for the visual and performing arts in Miami. While at Oklahoma City University she performed in "Sunday in the Park with George," "Children of Eden," "The House of Bernarda Alba," "In the Heights" and "Dog Sees God." In 2021, she made her professional debut playing Jan in "Grease" with Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma. Along with being a performer, she is also a web designer and writing coach and has coached acting and voice privately.

After graduating she had just moved to New York City to pursue her performing career but was back in Miami briefly visiting home when Rogers called on behalf of "My Fair Lady."

'Glorious music'

While delighted to be cast, Barrios-Torres said that taking the part of Eliza "was at first very intimidating. Some of the most beloved Broadway actors have done this role."

But the touring production, including returning cast members such as Jonathan Grunert as Professor Henry Higgins and John Adkison as Colonel Pickering, was "so welcoming," she said. Still, "It was like being the new kid at school. You want to be liked."

Rehearsals started auspiciously on her birthday in October. "I had a dialect coach who was wonderful. I have two dialects," she said of Eliza's Cockney and the upper-class English accent that she learns. "After each rehearsal I got this big index card with all the sounds I had to work on. I enjoyed it so much. I was really excited to dig into that part of it."

Then there are the songs. "Lerner and Loewe have written some of the most glorious music in the music cannon, so to sing music like this is stunning. So many people have covered these songs. People don't realize how many songs they know from the show."

The "My Fair Lady" tour has a traveling orchestra and it plays "my favorite overture" at the beginning of the musical, she said. "And then to walk out at the end of it and snap into the story is so thrilling."

‘Heartbreak, Happiness and Humor’

Reviewers have been thrilled. Omaha Magazine wrote, "The cast is led by Anette Barrios-Torres (Eliza Doolittle), whose stellar voice soars … Ms. Barrios-Torres flawlessly charms the audience with her beautiful soprano vocals and her character’s lovable transformation … Eliza’s journey is full of ‘Heartbreak, Happiness, and Humor’ … that the audience experiences with her, thanks to Barrios-Torres’ skills on stage.”

Regarding Eliza, "I think as a kid I very much looked up to her. I always very much admired her ability to see what what she could do before she could do it," Barrios-Torres said. "He (Higgins) her offers this possibility as a joke. She decides to stay and learn these things, but she's actually incredibly vulnerable and searching for a home the whole time."

The end of "May Fair Lady" has been the subject of some discussion. Eliza now speaks proper English, but what is to become of her? After an argument she leaves the Higgins house. She has a young socialite suitor — Freddy. Higgins has grown "Accustomed to Her Face."

Barrios-Torres said she's had discussions with Sher who has worked out an ending for the show that doesn't alter any text but may still come as a surprise. We'll have to go the theater and see it, she said.

As for the end of the "My Fair Lady" tour, the show is currently booked at least into April. There could be possible extensions.

"I would love to play this dream role as long as I can," Barrios-Torres said.

Asked if the show has been her big break, she said "This is huge for me. I don't know what it means for anyone else."

When the tour does end, "I don't know what will happen, which is the exciting thing about being an actor. I've learned I love to tour. We'll see what happens."

'My Fair Lady'

When: 8 p.m. Feb. 16; 2 and 8 p.m. Feb. 17; 1 and 7 p.m. Feb. 18. Audio description services available 1 p.m. Feb 18; ASL interpretation available 7 p.m. Feb. 18.

Where: The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge St., Worcester

How much: $39 to $89 depending on seat location and performance. (877) 571-7469; thehanovertheatre.org.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Anette Barrios-Torres is Eliza in "My Fair Lady" at Hanover Theatre