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McLEMORESVILLE - In a corner of her soul, Dixie Carter still isn't quite sure that the Dixie Carter Performing Arts and Academic Enrichment Center is real. That it's three weeks away from opening its doors is beyond the comprehension of her internal appointment book.
"I think I've been in denial the last two years," she said with a guilty look. "But now ... oh, my goodness ..."
In three weeks, she'll step on stage and perform for the first time at the performing arts center that bears her name just up the road in Huntingdon. Wondering which parts and people from her past will be there - and which ones she has to remember to call and invite - is a full-time task.
She'll go into the gala opening weekend owing her husband, Hal Holbrook, big time.
"He hates to carry suitcases onto planes. He always sends ahead," she said as she sipped tea by the fireplace in the music room of her Tennessee home. "And I called him last night and reminded him that they're taking the formal portrait (that will hang in the lobby) here tomorrow, and that he needed to bring his tuxedo, and don't forget the cuff links and studs.
"He tried to tell me, 'I have a perfectly good dark suit and white shirt' ... but I told him, this is the picture of us that will be hanging there after we're dead. He had to bring the tux."
The Nashville Symphony will formally open the inaugural season Nov. 19 at The Dixie. That afternoon, Carter will sing a little Waylon Jennings as part of the inaugural "Huntingdon Hayride" - a monthly feature in the 473-seat Hal Holbrook Theater.
"I'm not sure just how I will react, if I can do this without really welling up," she said. "The whole idea is overwhelming when I think about it."
Carter may be McLemoresville's most famous citizen, but she freely admits she is by no means the biggest benefactor of the $3.2 million facility.
"Usually one person or company writes the check, and they name the place in their honor. I couldn't do that. My husband and I, we
still have to work 10 months a year to make a living, especially since TV work has dropped off these days," said Carter, who starred in eight different series over 20 years.
"This happened because a high school classmate, (Huntingdon Mayor) Dale Kelley, did something amazingly kind - and had an amazing vision."
Kelley said the idea just fit.
"Like many rural counties, our central area was stagnant with nothing happening," he said, "but to have a natural draw in someone like Dixie and Hal, that helps to carry the message farther. It stretches what this facility can do."
Carter can close her eyes, look at The Dixie and see Barrow's department store - the main competition to H.L. Carter and Son on the opposite corner.
"Daddy (Halbert Carter) had each of us working there when we were 10, scooping up the penny candy from the barrels into a bag and weighing it," she said. "Worked our way to socks, then upstairs, then doing things like cutting window shades."
Those days, and those types of stores, are gone. She hopes the square's new incarnation will offer something new, especially to young people.
"The arts stretch young people," she said. "They show them what's possible. County music is great, but this place can show people there is more."
Carter sees the background of the center's director, Lee Warren, in arts for youth and knows "that can be a key part of this center's growth."
No doubt she'll spend time with the hayride when she's back to see her father, who's nearing 95, or penciling in the cabaret act she normally performs at venues such as The Carlisle in New York. Her role at the center?
"I think what I might want to do most here is organize a regional chorus of all ages, including the young, train it here and go on the road. Choral music gives young people a base for their musicianship," she said. "I think maybe the best thing I can do long term is put together conferences and symposiums.
"Doing a play would be great fun - but that takes a month of your time, and when you do a play on the road, you're always hoping someone will pick it up to take to Broadway. That's where you get paid."
She and Holbrook appeared in Houston in a new play this past year. "Got great reviews, but no producer picked it up (for Broadway). So you try again," Carter said. They'll try again in January, debuting a new two-person play, "Southern Comforts" by Kate Clark.
Holbrook has begun his fifth decade performing his one-man show "Mark Twain Tonight!" He will do that next spring in the theater he helped design, and which the Huntingdon City Council decided should bear his name. "He still does 30 to 40 dates with that show each year," Carter said.
"He had a ball helping the architects," she added. "I think what he concerned himself with the most on the project was making sure that all the little things you need for productions were there. Hal's been in dozens of these new performing arts centers over the years, and he's seen every detail that people just forget to put in, until it's too late, like one where they forgot to build dressing rooms."
What he's having the most fun with, however, is watching his wife - who is firmly in the spotlight for the next three weeks.
"He's kicking up his heels, talking up a storm," said Carter, who knows she's on a collision course with tongue-tied.
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