Musical

Branson is a concert town more than a theater town, so book musicals expecting a smaller field than you would find in a city with a resident playhouse.

One production sits squarely in the category: Smoke on the Mountain, set at a 1930s church singing convention in North Carolina. It is a proper book musical – characters, a narrative arc, and songs that belong to the story rather than a set list – and it doubles as some of the best close-harmony gospel singing in town.

If narrative is what you are after, a few other productions get close without being filed here. Million Dollar Quartet, under rock and roll, dramatises the 1956 Sun Studio session. A Shepherd’s Christmas Carol and the Shepherd of the Hills outdoor drama both tell a story on a large scale, the latter outdoors with a cast and livestock. Those two appear on the Christmas and dinner show lists respectively.