They came from across the country and drove in from the rest of Tennessee on Friday, braving the steamy heat of Nashville after a summer storm in sparkling boots, sequined jackets and butterfly accessories. There was even a blonde wig or two, piled high.
It was fitting for the first public performance of the musical biography of the woman Tennessee proudly claims as one of its own: Dolly Parton.
“She wanted her people to see it,” said Kim Mynatt, 61, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., the first in line with her husband at least two hours before the curtain rose at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts on Friday. “That’s one of the things I love about her.”
Nashville, of course, has its own Broadway: the downtown strip of honky-tonks and performance venues that has cultivated generations of musical talent. Yet it is an unusual place for a theater production, already aiming for a 2026 opening on Broadway in New York, to hold its world premiere.
Unless, of course, that show is the story of Dolly Parton.
“Dolly’s what got me here,” said Mynatt, who wore a 1989 Dollywood seasonal shirt — one of at least 30 Parton-themed shirts she owns — and one of Parton’s official pink butterfly statement necklaces. “The woman has never disappointed.”
Few artists have nurtured such a deeply personal relationship with their home state — or attained such levels of mythology. Her fingerprints are across Tennessee, from her anthems to her Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge to the money she poured into sending free books to children, coronavirus vaccine research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and wildfire recovery in Gatlinburg.
“Dolly: A True Original Musical” was now just a new, intriguing stop on the well-worn Dolly pilgrimage between East Tennessee and Nashville.
That preview quickly sold out at the Fisher Center on the campus of Belmont University, a private Christian university in Nashville. With a formal opening night set for Aug. 8, it has already extended its run to Aug. 31.
“We eat, breathe and live Dolly Parton,” said Jasmine Peterson, 28, who drove with her daughter, Mallory, 7, from the small town of Erwin in East Tennessee. Peterson said the way Parton grew up, in a one-room cabin without electricity or running water, resembled her grandparents’ lives, which made the successes documented in the musical all the more meaningful.
“She is the queen of Tennessee,” added Jessup Peterson, Ms. Peterson’s brother, who drove in from New Orleans to see the show with his siblings. “Any opportunity we get to see her is important to us.”
Parton — always Dolly here in Tennessee — and her music have now been shared over generations, particularly among women who found comfort and encouragement in her glamour, her faith and her principled ideals.
“I grew up with a grandmother that said, ‘There’s country and there’s Dolly,’” said Aundria Littlejohn, 28, who flew in from New York. “She’s always inspired this authenticity in myself, just to live it without having to say it.”
And with this preview performance kicking off “a full Dolly weekend,” she added, “I get to really dive into my obsession for a whole weekend.”
Part of the lobby had been transformed with similar obsessions in mind. A combined shop and display of Parton’s career and business empire, all behind a cabin entrance that nodded to her home in the mountains, was a prime attraction.
For the youngest attendees, there was an area dedicated to the Imagination Library, where children could draw and scrawl on butterfly sticky notes. Some of her performance outfits and costumes were on display, alongside life-size cutouts of Parton. There were buckets of pink and yellow roses that could be bought and assembled at the Bouquet Box Flower Bar.
And there was the merchandise, staggering in its scope: clothing, books, wine, skillets, buttermilk biscuit mix, just to name a few. (There are always more Dolly items to be purchased, fans agreed, beyond what had already been curated at home.)
A security guard, watching merchandise lines snake through, could be heard marveling at the enthusiasm. He should, he admitted, do a deeper dive himself into the Dolly lore.
“I don’t think people outside of Tennessee understand how important she is to East Tennessee,” said Kristi Watkins, 44, a catering manager in Knoxville, who recounted her time spent at Dollywood. “She’s never forgotten where she’s come from.”
Watkins and two friends, Julie Cuffman, 43, and Ashleigh Scott, 38, were among those not necessarily expecting to learn anything new from the show. Among the many scholars of Parton’s well-told story of her upbringing and success, it would be a surprise, they said, to uncover new revelations.
But it was a chance, fans said, to have a few more intimate glimpses into Parton’s mind and memories. At least one aspect has proved to be more poignant: Carl Dean, a constant, though deeply private, presence in Parton’s life over nearly six decades of marriage, died in March.
“This is a way for us to connect those moments that she’s been telling us about this whole time, but we didn’t see them,” said Kayleigh Mollycheck, a performer and marketing professional, who hand-bedazzled an “In Dolly We Trust” jacket for the occasion and carried a pink guitar purse.
She was among those who said part of the appeal of the first preview was the fact that the production was still making changes, as is common during previews, especially for out-of-state tryouts. (The director, Bartlett Sher, told the crowd before the show’s start that it was their third full run-through. Some in the audience already had plans to see it at least one more time.)
“I feel like I’m part of the creative process tonight because it’s going to morph and change and grow and breathe,” said Nathaniel Knepper-Quijano, an artistic director in Cocoa Village, Fla. ”
There was also no doubt that there was a thrill in hearing new Dolly music publicly for the first time — even if Parton wasn’t singing it herself. In a list of frequently asked questions, the musical reminds audiences that Parton will not be performing.
“We need more — you can’t ever have enough Dolly,” said Dalton King, 27, who lives in Clairfield in northeastern Tennessee. To see the musical debut in Nashville, he said, “goes full circle.”
And, of course, there was one other reason to be there for the first preview.
“What’s our theory on her being here?” one woman, in silver-bowed heels, asked those in line around her.
The answer was obvious when, right as the show was set to begin, the crowd roared and jumped to its feet. Outside the auditorium, a few theater staff members quickly gathered around a television, where a feed showed Parton onstage, beaming and shimmering in a sequined gold top, pants and heels.
“I want you to know that we’re so happy that we get to do this here in my hometown, here in Nashville,” Parton said, as she praised the musical’s team and warned the audience against singing along. (“This ain’t no hootenanny,” she said to laughter.)
“You know I love you and appreciate you,” she concluded. “I’m going to share my life story with you.”