By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS
TRAVERSE CITY -- Before she could play the legendary country music singer in Old Town Playhouse's "Always ... Patsy Cline," Joanie Stanley first had to get in shape.
Stanley, 47, hadn't sung musical theater since high school, and the show is packed with songs -- 27 of them, to be exact.
"I've been practicing them over and over every day and getting my vocal chords and breath control back in shape," said Stanley, who won the title role in the OTP-WTCM Radio production during a "Star Search"-like public audition in July. "It's like working your muscles and lifting weights: you have to keep working them or they go to pot."
The show opens Sept. 11, kicking off OTP's 50th season. While it's a tribute to the Country Music Hall of Fame singer who died tragically in a plane crash in 1963, the real story is Cline's unlikely friendship with a Houston fan named Louise Seger.
The women met in 1961 when Seger and some friends arrived early for one of Cline's shows there. Seger, who had first heard Cline on the "Arthur Godfrey Show" four years earlier, was an avid fan who constantly hounded the local disc jockey to play the singer's records on the radio. The meeting ended in Cline spending the night at Seger's house, where the women bonded over a pot of coffee.
Before Cline left for her next engagement, the new friends exchanged addresses and telephone numbers.
Although Seger never expected to hear from Cline again, she soon received the first of many phone calls and letters from the singer, which were consistently signed "Love ALWAYS ... Patsy Cline." The correspondence continued until Cline's death at age 30.
Created by Ted Swindley in 1988 and revised two years later, the show is one of the most-produced musicals in the country, boasting a successful run off-Broadway in 1997.
Told from Seger's perspective the evening she learns of Cline's death, it traces the friends' relationship through Seger's narrative and many of Cline's hits, including "Crazy," "I Fall to Pieces" and "Walking After Midnight."
"Patsy's the draw, but it's really Louise's story," said show director Jeanette Mason, who grew up singing Cline's songs around the campfire, accompanied by her Uncle Carl's ukulele. "Patsy passes in and out of time, where Louise is always in time, telling the story."
As the fundamentally shy Cline -- the first female to headline at the Grand Ole Opry and the first country singer to cross over to the pop charts -- Stanley had her work cut out for her. Besides memorizing more than two dozen songs and building up the endurance to sing them all in nightly performances, she had to master Cline's vocal quality, Virginia accent and soulful demeanor. All while managing her kitchen boutique, Skinny Dudez, in Acme.
"Being 47 years old, I wanted to know if I could still do it," said Stanley, who was convinced to audition for the role by a friend who'd heard her sing at church. "It's been 30 years since I've done musical theater and I thought it would be fun to go through the process. I had never gone through a formal audition process before."
The two-woman show also stars Sally Goggin, of Cadillac, as Seger. Best known for her title role in OTP's "Mame," Goggin makes the 120-mile commute most nights for the chance to play the West Texas woman complete with rough edges and a bawdy sense of humor.
"I have to have my fix every so often," said Goggin, who also was directed by Mason in "Into the Woods."
"The opportunity to create this terrific character was too good to pass up. For me it's all about the rehearsals. You get to try new things, it's a real give and take on stage."
The women are accompanied by "The Bodacious Bobs," a six-piece band led by mandolinist Don Julin and featuring members of the band Sister Wilene and other professional area musicians.
