Cast & Creative
We’re thrilled to announce the casting of three incredible actresses who will portray Dolly Parton at different stages of her life in the upcoming Nashville world premiere of DOLLY: An Original Musical.
Dolly Parton is the most honored and revered multi-hyphenate of all time and was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her recent album Rockstar made history by scoring the biggest album debut sales week of her seven-decade career and earning her six #1s on the Billboard charts – Top Rock Albums, Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Country Albums, Top Album Sales, Top Current Album Sales, and Independent Albums. The landmark album also claimed the #3 spot on the Billboard 200 chart, her highest position ever. Achieving 27 RIAA-certified gold, platinum, and multi-platinum awards, she has had 26 songs reach #1 on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist. Parton is the first artist to have topped Billboard’s Adult Contemporary, Christian AC Songs, Hot Country Songs, Christian Airplay, Rock Digital Songs, Country Airplay and Dance/Mix Show Airplay radio charts. Parton became the first country artist honored as Grammy MusiCares Person of the Year given out by NARAS. She has 49 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and 120 career-charted singles over the past 50+ years. On October 17, 2023, she released her second New York Times Best Seller coffee table book in a trilogy called Behind The Seams: My Life in Rhinestones. The first of the series was bestselling coffee table book Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. Her cookbook, Good Lookin’ Cookin’ co-authored with her sister Rachel Parton George was a #1 New York Times Best Seller for numerous weeks on the charts and was the #1 cookbook of 2024.
In 2014, the RIAA recognized her impact on recorded music with a plaque commemorating more than 100 million units sold worldwide. She has amassed eleven Grammy Awards and 54 nominations, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, 10 Country Music Association Awards, including Entertainer of the Year; five Academy of Country Music Awards, also including a nod for Entertainer of the Year; four People’s Choice Awards; and three American Music Awards. In 1999, Parton was inducted as a member of the coveted Country Music Hall of Fame.
Dolly has the largest fan base of all measured music artists in the YouGov database at #1 with 198 million. She has the #1 Q Score of all performers, solo and group. Dolly is one of only 25 celebrities in the E-poll database to have an E-score of 100 and has maintained that perfect rating for 8 years. She recently won Best Brand Award, Celebrity, Influencer and Fashion at the 2023 Licensing International Excellence Awards.
To date, Parton has donated over 270 million books to children around the world with her Imagination Library. Her children’s book, Coat of Many Colors, was dedicated to the Library of Congress to honor the Imagination Library’s 100 millionth book donation. In March of 2022, Parton released the book Run Rose Run which she co-authored with James Patterson which sat at # 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers List for five weeks, a record for this decade. She also released an accompanying album of the same name with original songs inspired by the book which reached #1 on three charts simultaneously – Country, Americana/Folk and Bluegrass Albums. From her “Coat of Many Colors” while working “9 to 5,” no dream is too big and no mountain too high for the country girl who turned the world into her stage.
Maria S. Schlatter is a two-time Emmy-winning, multi-nominated television producer and writer as well as a network executive for variety specials at ABC, eventually expanding to variety series.
Schlatter partnered with Dolly Parton to create, executive produce, and write a musical film for Netflix, Christmas on the Square, which went on to win two Emmys. Before that, she produced and wrote for many comedy, music, and variety specials and series, for the top performers in entertainment including Frank Sinatra and Muhammed Ali as well as an Emmy-winning Sammy Davis, Jr. special. She also was brought in by ABC to produce a series for Roseanne. She produced the American Comedy Awards for eleven years, Oscar’s Greatest Moments video for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a tribute to Blake Edwards for the DGA, the Television Hall of Fame for the Television Academy, AFI Salutes Harrison Ford, and AFI Salutes Dustin Hoffman.
After writing comedy material for geniuses such as John Cleese, Drew Carey, and Eddie Murphy, her political satire sketch comedy was used on the New York stage in Blow Me: A New Revue and in Zipper a stand-up and sketch comedy revue. She produced Norman’s Ark a musical with a cast of over 200 for the Ford Amphitheater in Los Angeles. Schlatter wrote the book for Pandora’s Box – A New Musical Play which premiered at the New York New Musical Festival, collaborating with composer and lyricist, the late Glen Roven. Her one-man, eight-character show Judgment Day starring Donald Corren earned rave reviews.
Also an award-winning videographer, she has produced and written many video and musical biographical tributes for Julie Andrews as well as tributes for Blake Edwards, Goldie Hawn, Frank Oz, and Dudley Moore. She produced the Gstaad Film Festival for two years with the late Tony Adams.