New Dolly Parton musical brings the greatest hits to the Chichester Festival Theatre stage

SussexWorld

Here You Come Again – the new Dolly Parton musical – brings the greatest hits to the Chichester Festival Theatre stage from Tuesday to Saturday, November 12-16 in a story of warmth and encouragement.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Now this

00:07is the closest I'm ever going to come to speaking to Dolly Parton. Tricia, this is your musical,

00:13you wrote it, co-wrote it, and you are Dolly Parton in Here You Come Again, the new Dolly

00:20Parton musical, which is coming to Chichester Festival Theatre shortly. Now, the starting

00:25point for all of this is that Dolly Parton means such a lot to you, doesn't she? What

00:30does she represent for you? Why is she so special?

00:33Oh, I've just loved Dolly my whole life. I first heard her sing when I was a little girl

00:38and something in me snapped and I knew I wanted to sing like that. And I just didn't know

00:44any better. I didn't know that you weren't supposed to copy as a little girl. So I just

00:49kind of trained my vocal cords to be able to wrap around, you know, the words the way

00:54she does.

00:55Yeah, you slip into it so easily, don't you?

00:57And vibrato. And, and I started singing like her and, and never stopped. And I would always

01:06bring joy to people when I would do it. People would say, Oh, sing like Dolly, you know,

01:11and I would do it at county fairs. And I would do it, you know, in tech rehearsal of, of

01:15a play that I was in or a musical, I'd all of a sudden burst out as Dolly. And everyone

01:19would always kind of laugh and go, Wow, you're really good at that. And I said, I wish someday

01:24that I could do something with this because I know how much he means to people. So during

01:30it, so I had this idea of creating a two person show about an Uber fan and his fantasy friendship

01:36with Dolly Parton. And in May of 2020, my husband, Gabriel Berry, and I were quarantining

01:44in a little log cabin in the foothills of California with our two children. And he got

01:48an email from a theater that he had worked out many years ago saying, Hey, we have a

01:52PPP grant for you. I'm sorry, I don't know what it stands for. But it's something that

01:56us was giving artists to help us out because we were all as you know, had no employment,

02:01no source of income. So they said, if you write a two person show, it doesn't matter

02:04if you get if it if you get the rights for it, just write it, you can get this little

02:09bit of money. So we wrote a two person show with our friend Bruce Valen. She's a wonderful

02:13comedic writer. And we did a zoom reading of it. And our lawyer said, I know Dolly Parton's

02:19lawyer, let me get this material to him because I think Dolly would love this. This messaging

02:23is up her alley. We never thought we would get the rights, but we did. He watched it,

02:29she heard me sing recordings that I did, you know, my little home recorder and, and read

02:34the script. And she absolutely loved it gave me permission to play her gave us the worldwide

02:38grand rights to all of our music. And so here we are. And now we're so lucky to be doing

02:43this UK tour. And I'm having an absolute blast. It sounds fabulous. I didn't know you all

02:47love Dolly so much.

02:48We do indeed. But the point is, in this musical, Dolly represents something very specific,

02:54doesn't she? A force for making us think that things can work out.

02:58Yes, I in our show, Dolly. Well, on a practical note, you see Dolly acting in a real life

03:10way. I believe this is how she would be, if it could be true that she came to life when

03:17you were alone in your attic going through a hard time, I believe what we've written

03:22is realistic and truthful. But what she represents symbolically is our highest consciousness,

03:29that part of ourself that knows it's going to be okay. That part of us when we're going

03:34through a turmoil that that can get in touch with a sense of calm and peace. And so it's

03:41it's quite a hopeful message. And the last song of the show we sing is Light of a Clear

03:46Blue Morning. And I sing that refrain over and over and over again. Everything's gonna

03:51be alright. It's gonna be okay. And the audience jumps to their feet because it's a message

03:59that they want to hear. We all want to have somebody that we trust say, hey, it's gonna

04:05be okay. And that's what our show is really about. It's a comedy, but it has a very deep

04:10hopeful message.

04:11It sounds brilliant. It sounds great. Looking forward to seeing it in just a bit.

04:15Oh, I can't wait to I really look forward to meeting you and having you come and, and

04:21boy, we've just had wonderful audiences so far in this tour. So thank you all for coming

04:25and supporting it.

04:26Lovely to speak to you.

04:27Yes, nice to speak to you too.

04:28Looking forward to seeing the show. Thanks so much indeed.

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Transcript

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