Factoid:Tickets for the performance are on sale at (618) 453-2787 and are $15 for the general public and $10 for students.

Carol Channing doesn’t know Carbondale. She doesn’t know SIU. And she certainly doesn’t know the DAILY EGYPTIAN. In fact, she’s so unfamiliar with the University’s student-run publication that over a 20-minute phone interview, she continually referred to it as the “Daily Eviction.”

But as the Tony Award-winning “Hello Dolly!” star will tell you, she didn’t get to where she is today by feigning recognition of a town far removed from the bright lights of Broadway. And despite her shortage of knowledge about Little Egypt, Channing said she is eager to grace the stage of Shryock Auditorium Oct. 2 with a one-woman variety stage show.

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“I’m excited to have the chance to share some of the things I’ve learned from all the years I’ve spent in show business,” Channing said.

Featuring songs made famous over the course of her 60-year career, “An Evening with Carol Channing” will span the decades between the Seattle native’s stage debut at the age of four and the 2002 release of her autobiography, “Just Lucky, I Guess.” She said the lecture/performance would detail so many aspects of her storied career that it’s difficult for her to summarize.

“I want to try and describe every show, every experience and every person I’ve ever met since I started doing this,” Channing said. “If I tried to describe all that to someone, it could take a few hours, which is a big reason why I’m having the show.”

While exposing Carbondale to the critically acclaimed stage antics that landed her the 1995 Lifetime Achievement Tony Award was an incentive to schedule her appearance, the prevailing aspect was a coincidental meeting with Public Policy Institute Director Paul Simon.

“We’d known each other in passing for a number of years, but it wasn’t until we met at a business dinner in Chicago that we really had a chance to sit down and talk,” said the former senator. “Then we ran into each other at the airport the next day and talked at length about a number of issues. And it just popped into my head that I should ask her to come to SIU and share her experiences.”

What inspired Simon to invite Channing, he said, was her portrayal of matchmaker Dolly Levi in Jerry Herman’s 1964 Broadway musical “Hello Dolly!” It is a role that Channing has played more than 5,000 times in her illustrious stage career, but one that Simon said has made her universally recognized.

“Anyone who has ever seen ‘Hello Dolly!’ will definitely know who this woman is,” he said. “That’s what really hammers home, the image of her as a great show business star.”

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Though the image of Channing as the widowed philanderer will be forever etched in the minds of audiences, her body of work is not limited to just her defining role. Channing also starred in the stage version of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” playing the part later made famous by Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 theatrical version.

She also later found success crossing over to the silver screen, snaring a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for her supporting turn in 1967’s “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”

But it was on the stage where Channing was truly in her element, and where she said was in constant pursuit of perfection in her craft.

“What always drove me was trying to find the spine of the character you’re portraying,” Channing said. “It’s all a part of analyzing and dissecting a play, which enables you to learn a lot.”

Channing wasn’t always so upbeat about her career path. Early on in her pursuit of stage success, she suffered a setback while searching for work in New York City. After attending Bennington College, Channing attended numerous auditions but found no takers.

“After I couldn’t find any work, I kind of went back with my tail between my legs,” she said. “I had to end up taking a job modeling in San Francisco.”

Not content with a life of posing and primping, Channing eventually found her way back to the Big Apple and scored her big break with “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” before making Broadway history with “Hello Dolly!” Channing said her presentation would include a performance of the title song of the award-winning production, lauded as one of the most memorable songs in the annals of the American musical.

“I’m going to sing for the audience to try and show why it’s been so celebrated,” she said. “It’s a number that really shows how the story of Dolly revolves around her journey and her life mission.”

While Channing’s performance as Dolly is what she is best remembered for, it was her 2002 book that has impacted her most. In what she said was “the most important” part of her memoir, Channing spoke about her junior high school sweetheart, Harry Kullijan.

The two attended a San Francisco middle school together after Channing’s family relocated from Seattle but were separated after Kullijan’s enrollment in a military high school, effectively ended their three-year courtship. But Kullijan never left Channing’s mind or her heart, and she wrote intimately about him in her book, an act that compelled one of her close friends to contact Kullijan.

“I had wrote so openly about him because I was sure that he would have been dead since he was a year older than me,” Channing said. “But then one of my friends, Mervin Morris, called him and told him what I had written and that he absolutely must contact me. And then one day, out of the blue, he called me up.”

Within two weeks of Kullijan’s surprise phone call, he and Channing were engaged, which she said is a testament to Kullijan’s continued presence in her life despite the decades they spent apart.

“We were with one another during our formative years and he always stayed with me,” Channing said. “He helped me discover who I was and that’s what stuck with me.”

In addition to her newfound wedded bliss, Channing said she also feels privileged to have had such a successful career that she hopes to discuss in-depth through words and songs in her visit to Shryock.

“I’ve had two smash hits and that’s one, maybe two, more than anyone can ever expect to have,” she said. “I’ve been blessed with some great parts and become attached to them and I look forward to sharing that with others.”