On May 8 – 11 we visited Branson MO to take in some shows. In order they were: Patsy Cline Remembered, Pierce Arrow, Dixie Stampede, and Dublin’s Irish Tenors with the Celtic Ladies. Branson has nearly 40 venues for shows, and in some three or four different shows may be put on during a week. For example, in the Hamner Variety Theater (below) Patsy Cline Remembered is on 5 matinees per week with a different morning show and an evening show, plus a Sunday morning worship service. The shows are clean in language and theme (no strippers or bawdy comics). The performers meet the audience in the lobby after the show. There are practically no shows on Sunday and many venues are dark on Mondays as well.
Here we saw the tribute show Patsy Cline Remembered. The singer was C J Newsom. She did not try to look like Patsy Cline.
She had about 4 costume changes and sang numbers associated with contemporaries of Patsy Cline as well as the most popular Patsy Cline numbers. Both her show and others had patriotic numbers. It was too bad that there were less than 40 people in the audience. We both enjoyed the show.
Next was Pierce Arrow. For our performance they were missing one of their regular singers, but a member of the band pinch hit for the missing one. The singer at the right for 18 years held the Guinness Book of Records record for the lowest note sung. They did modern music, none of which was familiar to me.
Our third show was a dinner show, Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede. Attendees were encouraged to show up 50 minutes before the show for a pre-show. Below, the star of the preshow was this young man juggling up to 9 balls at a time, some behind his back. In this natural light shot the slow shutter speed of the camera resulted in some of the balls appearing elongated.
No pictures were permitted during the dinner or show, so all I can show here is the arena where the horses and riders performed, plus the seating for dinner and watching the show. People sat at a long table preset with plates and bowls. The waters walked in the passageway in front of the long table to distribute the food – a beverage, roll, soup, a small barbecued foul called a chicken but probably a Cornish game hen, a slice of pork loin, a short piece of corn on the cob, a piece of baked potato and an apple turnover. All was to be eaten without knife, fork or spoon!
Our last show was the Irish singers. Above are the four Celtic Ladies and below are the five tenors. They performed not only traditional Irish songs but show tunes and even some opera numbers. The lady at the far left must have had opera voice training. We both enjoyed this one. But I was a little disappointed that all of the singers used hand held microphones rather than wearing the small microphones on their heads.
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