Dolly Parton fans will find themselves transported to country music heaven this weekend and next as Kim Eberhardt performs her spot-on tribute to Tennessee’s very own Backwoods Barbie, the lovingly titled Love, Dolly, at Sierra Madre Playhouse.

Dolled up as befits a country gal and bouffantly bewigged as befits the platinum blonde bombshell, Eberhardt never pretends to be anything other than her Southern California self (despite the spot-on Tennessee accent she affects throughout the show’s two forty-five-minute acts).

Instead, she salutes the legendary singer-songwriter via a series of biographical factoids and anecdotes interspersed between song after song after song, warbled so pitch-perfectly that if you shut your eyes, you might just think it’s Dolly herself up on the Sierra Madre Playhouse stage.

From the show-opening “Joshua” to “Here You Come Again” to “Tennessee Homesick Blues” to “Coat Of Many Colors” to “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” there’s hardly a Dolly hit that doesn’t get sung, and the aforementioned five are just those that Eberhardt performs in the tribute concert’s first twenty minutes.

Add to that “Jolene” (which Eberhardt reveals was written in response to a local hussy who tried to take Dolly’s man, i,e, hubby of 57 years Carl Thomas Dean), “Islands In The Stream” (performed opposite guitarist-backup vocalist David Kirk Grant in Kenny Rogers mode), “9 to 5” (the million-seller that scored Dolly an Oscar nomination), and “I Will Always Love You” (made immortal by Whitney Houston but written and first recorded by Dolly herself) and you have Dolly Parton’s Greatest Hits sung live by the dazzling Kim Eberhardt.

Long a SoCal musical theater staple both as performer and choreographer, Eberhardt first discovered her vocal resemblance to Dolly when she played Doralee Rhodes (the role Parton originated in the 1980 movie) in a local production of the film’s musical stage adaptation, and the germ of an idea for a tribute show was born.

Having already delighted audiences in such far-flung locales as Fontana, North Hollywood, Simi Valley, and Claremont, Love, Dolly’s Sierra Madre Playhouse 6-show run is the show’s first extended engagement, and the Playhouse has given Eberhardt and her musicians the Grade-A treatment including Jeanne Marie Valleroy’s razzle-dazzle lighting and sound engineer Kevin Scott’s expert mix of amped instruments and vocals.

Last but most definitely not least, Grant (on guitar), Nathan Alexander (on bass), and Kurt Walther (on drums) are everything a country music artist could hope for in a backup band.

Valleroy is stage manager and Colton Bassett is assistant stage manager. Berrie Tseng is board operator. Todd McCraw is technical director. Philip Sokoloff is publicist.

The more you love Dolly Parton (and who doesn’t?), the more you’ll love Love, Dolly, but even those less familiar with the hundreds upon hundreds of songs she has written and recorded over the past half-century are guaranteed to find themselves falling under next-best-thing-to-Dolly Kim Eberhardt’s magic spell.

Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre.
www.sierramadreplayhouse.org

–Steven Stanley
June 9, 2023
Photos: Steven Stanley

Tags: Dolly Parton, Los Angeles Theater Review, Sierra Madre Playhouse