New West Theatre gets down in the country in July.
The popular local theatre troupe opens their first summer production “Country Gold : Songs of the Prairie Grass tonight at the Yates Theatre.
The show runs July 4- 27 at 7:30 p.m.
They are looking deep into the country music‘s roots drawing on traditional country to country music from the ’90s ranging from Barbara Mandrell, the Carter Family, George Jones and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
they have an outstanding cast featuring familiar faces like Jocelyn Haub, Erica Hunt, Scot Carpenter , returning members like Devon Brayne and Kathy Zaborsky and newcomers like Juran Greene. They have even added a fiddle player to the band.
The format of the show has changed , featuring tall tales, stories and a set that looks like a barn, but which is also 10 feet closer to the audience.
“We’ve done country shows twice before,” said Mason.
“ So Paul (Walker, musical director) and I looked at the song list and we had a great number of songs. But we wanted to stay away from the more pop side of country and focussed more on traditional country music. We wanted to see what makes country country. And a lot of that is storytelling,” he summarized adding there will be cowboy poetry and tall tales rather than “dramatized knock knock jokes” New West Theatre usually does.
He noted the stories and tall tales will be akin to what Stuart McLean‘s Vinyl Cafe does.
“We’ve chosen songs that go as far back as the 1920s with the Carter Family as well as songs from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.
“We wanted the songs to show what it is like to grow up on the prairies,” he said.
The other big change is the shows will start a half hour earlier— at 7:30 p.m. each night to allow people coming in from out of town to get home earlier.
