Creative Team
Creative
DOLLY PARTON
Music, Lyrics & Book
DOLLY PARTON
Music, Lyrics & Book
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, Bluegrass, 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. In 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 the bestselling coffee table book Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. In September 2024, Parton with her sister Rachel George Parton co-authored the cookbook Good Lookin’ Cookin’ which premiered at #1 on New York Times Best Seller list and remained #1 for 3 weeks.
In 2014, the RIAA recognized her impact on recorded music with a plaque commemorating more than 100 million units sold worldwide. She has amassed 11 Grammy Awards and 52 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.
Parton 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. She 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 eight years. She recently won Best Brand Award, Celebrity, Influencer and Fashion at the 2023 Licensing International Excellence Awards.
To date, Parton has donated over 255 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 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
Book Co-Writer
MARIA S.
SCHLATTER
Book Co-Writer
Maria S. Schlatter (Book Co-Writer) 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.
BARTLETT SHER
Direction
BARTLETT SHER
Direction
The New York Times has praised Sher as “one of the most original and exciting directors, not only in the American theater but also in the international world of opera.” Nominated for the Tony Award nine times, he took home the prize in 2008 for his powerful revival of South Pacific.
Sher’s early career included residencies all over the world, under the guidance of such extraordinary artists as Garland Wright, Robert Woodruff, and Peter Hall. In 2000, he arrived at the Intiman Theater in Seattle, where he served as the Artistic Director until 2009.
During his time working in a regional theater, he directed over twenty plays by Shakespeare, and immersed himself in the classics. His Cymbeline was the first American production of a Shakespeare play presented at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. Sher’s first Broadway production was the 2005 world premiere of The Light in the Piazza, by Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas, which garnered him his first Tony nomination.
Soon after, he became the Resident Director of Lincoln Center Theater, a position he has held ever since. While at LCT, Bart has received Tony Award nominations for his productions of My Fair Lady, Oslo, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I, Golden Boy, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Awake and Sing!, and The Light in the Piazza. His other LCT productions include Corruption, Lerner & Lowe’s Camelot, Intimate Apparel, Blood and Gifts, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
On Broadway, Bart has directed such shows as Pictures from Home, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Bridges of Madison County. In 2018, he directed Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway, which became the best-selling American play in Broadway history.
In the world of opera, Bart has directed both new work and classics at some of the most prestigious opera houses in the world, including La Scala, the English National Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Chicago, Seattle, the Berlin Staatsoper, Baden Baden, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He will direct the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for the Met in their 2025-2026 season.
His film of Oslo premiered on HBO in 2021 and was nominated for two Emmy Awards and won a Critics Choice Award.
His most recent works are the hit world premiere Ayad Akhtar play, McNeal, starring Robert Downey Jr. at Lincoln Center Theater; and the acclaimed revival of Kiss Me, Kate, at the Barbican Theater in London. Upcoming work includes a new Adam Guettel / Bob Martin musical Millions, premiering at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta; and the stage adaptation of the movie-musical La La Land. He will direct the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for the Met in their 2025-2026 season.