Yahoo Lifestyle Dolly Parton Announces ‘Dolly: An Original Musical’ Will Premiere in Nashville This Summer, Prior to Planned 2026 Broadway Run
Dolly Parton announced Tuesday that her autobiographical stage musical “Dolly: An Original Musical” will have its world premiere in Nashville this July, the first public stop on the way to a planned Broadway opening in 2026.
Directed by Tony winner Bartlett Sher, the Nashville production will play a limited four-week engagement on the campus of Belmont University, at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Preview performances begin July 18, with the official opening night set for Aug. 8. Most of the Belmont performances will actually take place during that preview stage, as the show is scheduled to have its last night on Aug. 17. Tickets are now on sale at www.dollymusical.com.
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Parton and Sher announced plans for this seminal production during a morning press event at Belmont, in front of an audience of students as well as media, with Tennessean writer Marcus Dowling moderating.
Asked why she’s doing the show now, Parton said, “Well, I ain’t getting no younger, but as I tell my husband, I ain’t getting no older either — 21 and a half, you know? I’ve outlived so many plastic surgeons. But I actually have always wanted to do my life story as a musical. And I just thought that I wanted to see it done while I’m still around, to be able to oversee it and make sure that it’s done properly in a way that I would want to see it, rather than to wait till I’m gone and let somebody else decide how they think it should be done.”
“People say, ‘Well, I thought we knew everything about your life’,” Parton said in front of the Belmont audience. “Well you do, ’cause I’ve lived long enough. If you’ve been watching anything, you know all about me, you think. But actually, we will be doing lots of songs that you know in the musical. But I’ve written a whole lot of original songs, and I’m having a whole lot of fun working with Maria Slaughter, who I’ve written the book with, or the playbill or whatever you call it. But it’s my story. of course, so I’m giving her an earful of stuff that a lot of people have not seen yet. Of course, we’re lucky enough to have the wonderful Bartlett Sher to direct it and tell my story in the way that I think it should be.”
Three different actors will portray Parton at different stages of life in the musical. “I wish I had three of me a lot of times, the way I work,” she said.
Of the new material, she promised a strong country flavor — with some nods toward New York theater traditions. “I’m known for being a country girl, living a country life, and I have touched so many lives with telling so many stories about people and how that goes. So it was only natural that the new music that I’ve written kind of has that flavor and it kind of carries on different stories and different parts of my life. (But) I wanted to think, like, how can I be Broadway? So a lot of the stuff, actually, we’ve got some bigger songs that are really tailor-made to what I thought how Broadway would be, but still keeping that country flavor. We use a lot of the country instruments — fiddle, steel, mandolin… and I think they’ll appreciate me taking Nashville to New York with all those country sounds. … And when I had a chance to do something bigger and broader where I thought, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get to have an orchestra — that’s gonna be great if I can have strings on this and that,’ it was exciting and fun for me to write the new stuff.”
Sher said that the musical would be very much a work-in-progress during the Nashville run, and that he expects even the second week of previews to be substantially different from the first.
Parton first announced the project last June during a CMA Week appearance in Nashville, including then revealing that she was co-writing the book of the musical with with Maria S. Schlatter, who previously co-wrote the 2020 Netflix movie “Christmas on the Square” with Parton. A nationwide casting call was announced at that time; that call is now closed.
Parton hedged on details about the casting of the show, indicating that not all the roles had yet been filled, and that it was possible, but not certain, that actors found in the casting call would be included among Broadway pros.
Parton also announced a “Dolly U” program at Belmont, described as “a groundbreaking immersive educational partnership” with the university.
The musical is produced by Parton, Danny Nozell, ATG Productions, and Gavin Kalin Productions. Jim Carnahan and Carrie Gardner are set as casting directors, and 101 Productions, Ltd. is the general manager for the musical.
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