Having opened its first season in September 1999 with a performance by Art Garfunkel, Bartlett Performing Arts & Conference Center (BPACC) is now gearing up for its 25th season opening this fall. This season, as with every season, promises an array of performing arts, with everything from concerts to theater productions.
For Michael Bollinger, BPACC’s director, the variety built into the venue’s programming is intentional for one simple reason: “Because not everybody likes the same thing.”
The 25th season kicks off with a Neil Diamond tribute concert by Jay White on October 7th. “He’s the only [tribute] artist that Neil Diamond personally has kind of sanctioned,” says Bollinger, whose standards for tribute artists are pretty high. “There are a lot of bad tribute artists, but what I look for is they’ve got to be exceptional musicians and do the music well, and not try to be [the original artists by cosplaying as them] but instead pay good homage to their music.”
Other tribute artists this season include an Everly Brothers Experience Holiday Show with brothers Zach and Dylan Zmed on December 7th, ABBA Revisited on January 13th, and a Salute to the Eagles on February 10th.
In addition to tribute concerts, BPACC, of course, has your typical concert offerings. This season’s concert lineup includes country musicians Morgan Myles and Jay Allen from The Voice on October 28, Grammy Award-winning Crystal Gayle on November 3rd, and bluegrass band The Dillards on November 17th to close out 2023. Next year’s half of the season includes country and gospel trio Chapel Hart on January 26th, Bartlett Community Concert Band on March 12th, Leigh Nash of Sixpence None the Richer on April 6th, and Tom Wopat on April 19th.
One point of pride that Bollinger mentions is BPACC’s Music by the Lake series, which he started after assuming his role in 2016. As he puts it, “It’s just a fancy title for outdoor concerts that are free. We do two concerts, one in May and one in June, and each one features only musicians from the Mid-South.”
In the same vein, last year, BPACC, in partnership with Tennessee Shakespeare Company (TSC), launched Theater by the Lake, with the theater group putting on a free performance of Macbeth as part of their Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series. This year, TSC will perform an abbreviated version of The Tempest on October 18th.
“So, Music by the Lake and Theater by the Lake, those are free things that anybody in the whole Mid-South can come to,” Bollinger says. “You just bring your chair. It’s a nice big green park area that Lake Appling surrounds, so it’s just a really pretty place to have a concert or something.”
With these free events, as well as the arts and education program, Bollinger also hopes to expand accessibility to the arts, particularly live performances. Through the arts and education program, BPACC offers free school performances of certain shows for Bartlett students. This season’s show is Peter Pan, which will also have ticketed performances for the public from March 8th to March 10th.
“It’s just important, I think, for kids to have that experience [of a live theater performance],” Bollinger says. “And then the other thing is kids — this is a generalization — but a lot of kids, and adults, learn by more traditional ways, like reading or lectures. But a lot of kids don’t. They learn very well by watching and by participation.”
To that end, this season will also feature The Dinosaur Quest of Dr. T-Rex, where “Dr. T-Rex” will teach audiences about everyone’s favorite dinosaurs with help from the audience and his dino friends. Other family-friendly performances include Mark Nizer 4D (November 18th), It’s a Wonderful Life: The Live Radio Play (December 1st-3rd), and BPACC and Esprit de Corps’ The Nutcracker Ballet (December 15th-17th).
With such a diverse menu of events for BPACC’s season, Bollinger hopes to capture the interest of everyone, and maybe even expose some folks to something new altogether. “One thing about our theater, if you’ve never been here,” he adds, “is we have 350 seats, and the nice thing about 350 is, even if you’re sitting in the back row, it’s like they’re performing in your living room.
“It’s not unusual that the artists will come out and personally meet the audience afterwards in the lobby and take photos or sign autographs or whatever,” Bollinger continues. “But the most important thing is, that intimate venue is really what makes the place special.”
Find more information about BPACC’s 25th season and purchase tickets at bpacc.org. Tickets for a comedy night with Henry Cho are already sold out.