Reba McEntire -You can’t get a man with a gun
An evening pause: From the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. In January 2001, McEntire, a well known country singer, made her Broadway debut in the 2000 revival of the musical that was opened originally with Bernedette Peters in the role. McEntire was an instant sensation, performing the role on Broadway for eighteen months. In many ways this role made her, as it showed she could do far more than sing, and was in fact a very skilled comedic actor.
This clip, shot by an audience member, does a remarkable job of capturing part of one of those performances.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
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Clip???
Willi: Just got home from a hike and fixed the post, adding the embed code. Sorry about that.
According to Reba’s web site, she performed the lead role in Annie Get Your Gun for 5 months. If it was news to Broadway that Reba was a gifted comedic actor it was because, like most things New York, Broadway is pretty provincial. She was very funny in the first Tremors movie – her first film role. Broadway wasn’t even the first time she had portrayed Annie Oakley. She did so in a non-singing role in the 1995 mini-series Buffalo Girls. Starting a few months after her Broadway run in Annie Get Your Gun ended, Reba debuted her own eponymous situation comedy show that ran for six seasons. She has a lot of other movie, TV and theatre credits too, including a turn as Nellie Forbush in a 2005 revival of South Pacific at Carnegie Hall.
Dick Eagleson: McEntire’s success in this Broadway show was significant to her career because it was a leading role, unlike her previous parts. And her performance was so good that ticket sales skyrocketed, which is always the thing that gets the most attention from the people that really matter, those who want to make money from show business.
The result? She was able to use this success to get a contract for her own situation comedy show and for many other leading roles in the future, including playing Nellie Forbush in the one time performance concert of South Pacific in Carnegie Hall. For her acting career, the Annie Get Your Gun part was without question the key moment in that career. Which was my point in my opening remarks above.
She really has talent, as I saw in Tremors and more so in this clip. I found her TV show disappointing.
Hope to see her in more things that show off her talents.