Lisa Mills (left) and C.C. Currie star in the Delray Beach Playhouse production of Always ... Patsy Cline. Photo by Jerry Lower
By Ron Hayes
During the day, C.C. Currie is a cat-scan technologist from Sunrise.
At night, she’s Louise Seger, a star-struck country music fan from Mississippi.
During the day, Lisa Mills is a visual merchandising manager at Macy’s in the Aventura Mall.
At night, she’s Patsy Cline.
Add a six-piece band and they’re Always … Patsy Cline, a musical memoir running through Feb. 20 at the Delray Beach Playhouse, and a bit of a first for the community theater’s 64th season.
“We’ve never done anything quite like this before,” says Artistic Director Randolph DelLago. “Most of our musical programs have been about Broadway composers like Kander and Ebb or Harold Arlen.”
But with help from a double bass, a fiddle and a steel guitar, the musical review is as close as country music lovers can get to an evening with the woman who turned Walking After Midnight, I Fall To Pieces and Crazy into country classics and juke box perennials.
Ted Swindley’s play, which debuted in 1993, is inspired by a chapter in Honky Tonk Angel, Ellis Nassour’s biography of Cline.
A long-time fan, Seger finally met her idol at Houston’s Esquire Ballroom in 1961. She invited Cline back for a home-cooked meal. They remained friends and exchanged letters — signed “Always, Patsy Cline” — until 1963, when the 30-year-old singer died in a plane crash and a music legend was born.
In the play, Currie as Seger addresses the audience directly, recalling her friendship with Cline and serving as a narrative thread through the show’s 24 songs.
“I get 90 percent of the talking, and Lisa gets 90 percent of the singing,” Currie says.
And, oh, what singing.
On a Wednesday night in early January, Currie and Mills stood on the theater’s empty stage as DelLago sat on a stool at the front, helping them shape a scene.
With no band and no mike, Mills broke into an a cappella rendition of Crazy and sounded, no doubt about it, perfectly Patsy.
“I would give five years of my life to be able to sing like that,” DelLago murmured.
In a blue cowgirl dress, white hat and boots, Mills looks like Patsy Cline, and sounds like her, too. And Currie’s giant bouffant wig and molasses drawl is a perfect echo of the early ’60s.
Neither is a professional actress or singer, though both performed in college and occasional local theater.
But with DelLago offering tips on when to turn, how to interact, the two moved easily through the rehearsal. Perhaps that’s because they’ve already worked together, performing Always … Patsy Cline at the Lake Worth Playhouse in April 2009.
“Rarely will you find such a uniquely expert cast,” says DelLago, “so it’s like a month in the country for an old director. This will be as close to a professional production as we’ll see here for a while.”
After a wrenching performance of Three Cigarettes And An Ashtray, they relaxed backstage.
What is it about Patsy Cline that’s lasted, after so many long-gone stars of the Grand Ole Opry are forgotten?
“I think it’s that her voice is very plaintive, and yet she brings so much feeling to it that everybody who hears her knows what she’s feeling,” Mills said.
And what is her favorite Patsy Cline song?
“One?” she protested. “I don’t know. Faded Love …? You Belong To Me …?”
Finally, she gave up.
Trying to choose a single favorite Patsy Cline song
would be … crazy.
Always … Patsy Cline
is on stage at the Delray Beach Playhouse through Feb. 20. For information or tickets, call 272-1281.
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