Thursday, February 9, 2012
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By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer
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“Where, oh where, are you tonight? Why did you leave me here all alone? I searched the world over and thought I found true love. You met another and PFFT! You were gone.”

The Music Box Dinner Playhouse in Swoyersville brings out the country hits of the past 50 years in ‘Nashville 2,’ starting Thursday and running through Sept. 19.

What: ‘Nashville 2’
Who: Music Box Players
When: Thursday through Sept. 19 with performances at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays
Where: Music Box Dinner Playhouse, 196 Hughes St., Swoyersville
More info: 283-2195
If those lyrics make you feel homesick for hay bales, hootenannies and a vintage TV show called “Hee-Haw,” you just might want to scoot your boots on down to the Music Box Playhouse in Swoyersville for a musical revue called “Nashville 2.”
Based on the success of the first “Nashville” Music Box staged about five years ago, director Debbie Zehner believes this revisit will be popular as well.
Of course, it’s not all as corny as Buck Owens’ little “Where, oh Where” ditty. Cast members will cover everything from Patsy Cline’s sultry and rueful “Crazy” – “I’m crazy for trying and crazy for crying and I’m crazy for loving you” – to Martina McBride’s poignant “Broken Wing” – “And with a broken wing she still sings. She keeps her eye on the sky … Man, you ought to see her fly.”
“We have a whole array of older numbers, some of the old classic country music plus some of the newer stuff,” Zehner said, explaining the revue doesn’t have a plot but does sort songs into such categories as country drinkin’ and dyin,’ country lovin’ and leavin.’
“We go from things like ‘Harper Valley PTA’ to a number called ‘Skin,’ about a boy who shows up for a date with his head shaved” in support of a girl who has cancer,” Zehner said.
A section of the program dedicated to military troops and their families will include such patriotic tunes as “God Bless the USA,” “America the Beautiful” and the nostalgic “Through the Years.”
Some of the singers in the cast have voices reminiscent of the original artists, Zehner said. Among them, “John Kennedy does a lot of the Garth Brooks songs. He has the same kind of resonance. Amanda Reese sounds like Carrie Underwood with ‘Jesus, Take the Wheel.’ ”
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