Singer Ginny Pugh Spillman will perform as Patsy Cline in “A Hee haw Show” at Willow Leaves of Hope.
Photo provided
The town of Hope will go a bit more rural March 18 when it becomes Kornfield Kounty, where cornball humor stalks good-time, goofy entertainment, and where country music will give audiences a little more twang for their buck.
So it will be when Actor’s Studio of Hope presents local writer/actress Naomi Fleetwood-Pyle’s latest original, two-hour production, “A Hee Haw Show,” with enough corny humor to elicit groans from here to Nashville, Tennessee, where the hit TV show was filmed from 1969 to 1993.
Fleetwood-Pyle already has a set, including real hay bales, at Willow Leaves of Hope, where the 100-seat dinner theater performances will unfold March 18-20 and March 25-27. Her productions frequently have sold out. Her big idea is simply to till the rich nostalgia of a show in which country roots and hoots were unabashedly celebrated.
“I have been wanting to do this for a long time,” Fleetwood-Pyle said. “I wrote this because I loved the show growing up.”
Just like the real show, this production will include the Girls All Jug Band and even Minnie Pearl, played by local resident Nancy Worland. The costuming alone is convincing when Worland takes on the character, as a photo will attest. She will even offer a few real Minnie Pearl gems as part of the show.
“Oh, she’s very funny,” Fleetwood-Pyle said.
That includes when Worland unleashes this actual Pearl pearl: “When I die, I want all my pallbearers to be women. If men won’t take me out while I’m alive, they’re certainly not going to take me out when I’m dead.”
Cloggers, which were featured on the real “Hee Haw” on a few occasions, also will be a part of the show — no tough assignment considering that Fleetwood-Pyle has literally clogged nearly all over the globe. She also will be part of a scene redoing actor Archie Campbell’s famous Rindercella routine in which he would repeatedly jumble word prefixes as he told the classic story of Cinderella or other tales.
With little prompting, Fleetwood-Pyle rattled off an example of her own Cinderella wrap-up.
“”If you go to a bancy fall, and you want to meet a prandsome hince, don’t forget to slop your dripper,” she said, breaking into laughter.
Indianapolis singer Ginny Pugh Spillman will portray in both vocals and costuming country music legends Patsy Cline and Tammy Wynette in various numbers for the show.
“I want people to remember these strong women as they really were and the contributions they made to music and more,” Spillman said.
The performer loves the fact that Cline became the first female solo act ever at the prestigious Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.
“She was such a fighter for women’s rights,” Spillman said. “And she brought so many other women into the limelight.”
That includes Wynette.
Spillman has twice portrayed the title character in “Always, Patsy Cline” at the 148-seat Myers Dinner Theatre in Hillsboro.
“It’s the only show that I know of that has been there and been brought back by popular demand,” Spillman said of the bookings in 2009 and 2010.
The cast of 13 in “A Hee Haw Show” promises a million laughs — or least enough to be simple seeds to stress relief in a world darkened by war and more.
