BWW Interviews: Onstage at The Barn: Memories From the First 45 Years with Mark Delabarre

It's been 45 years since Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, the venerable venue that has mounted some of the best theater Nashville audiences have seen, first burst upon the Nashville theatrical scene as the professional dinner theater in Tennessee's state capital.

Founded by  A. W. and Puny Chaffin, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre-now owned by Janie and John Chaffin, the second generation of the theatrical family-The Barn has offered every one of its audiences exciting, top-quality, professional theatre and a mouth-watering buffet, fairly groaning with Southern delicacies.

And since 1967, Chaffin's Barn has provided employment to some of the best actors to be found on stages anywhere, launching careers for actors who have gained critical and audience acclaim all over the country. And during that time, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre has been hailed as one of the Top 25 tourist attractions in Nashville, "Best Buffet" and "Best Place to See a Play" in The Tennessean's annual Toast of Music City contest and in Nashville Scene's "Best of" as one of the top three "Best Places to See a Play." Chaffin's Barn has been the recipient of The First Night Lifetime Achievement Award and its shows, directors, choreographers and actors took home multiple First Night honors over the years.

In recognition of The Barn's 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actor Mark Delabarre, who made his debut at The Barn in the 1997 production of Sugar Babies-the Broadway musical comedy hit that actually got its start at the Clarence Brown Theatre at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. And like Nancy Allen and Dietz Osborne (the first two Barn alums to take part in our continuing series), Delabarre's memories of working at the theater are vivid, funny and heartfelt.

"Nashville, as a whole, is where I cut my teeth and got all my union cards," Delabarre explains. "In six years,, I did over 50 shows, as well as film, TV, commercials, print, and even recorded an amazing Wonderful Life cast album with the head of Warner Bros."

Now living in New York, he recalls his time at The Barn with fondness (just as those of us do, who were lucky enough to see him onstage regularly) and his recollections of his time in Nashville are hilarious, genuine and sincere (which is how he's remembered by all of us here).

"Almost 20 years later, Nashville has more of my friends than anywhere on Earth. Anywhere," he says-as he shares his memories of the first 45 years of The Barn.

What was your first experience at Chaffin's Barn? My first experience was Sugar Babies (1987) starring Michael Edwards and I auditioned for Tom with-wait for it!-a cassette tape. I don't mean it was my accompaniment, I mean it was my audition since I had just moved to town and didn't know any pianists. God bless Tom and Michael Edwards, they took a chance and made me the Second Banana with an amazing cast including Broadway regular Joe Mahowald and his amazing wife Elizabeth Moses, Moses, Moses (Mahowald). All these gajillion years later, I'm still known for my comedy, and everything I know about timing, I stole from Michael.

What's your most vivid memory of working there? Too many vivid memories, but I'll never forget how John kept me alive by quite literally making up jobs for me to do, just so I could eat! It really was a home away from hovel. I met and worked with amazing actors, directors, choreographers, designers and even won a First Night A

ward for the first version of Singing in the Rain-in the round! One of many shows we did that had no reason to be done in the round. (Hello, Little Shop?)

What's the funniest experience you had at the Barn? Again, too many absurdly funny moments to list: Getting pranked by Mahowald, learning spit takes, planned crack-ups, running up and down every step carrying Martha Wilkinson like a sack of potatoes and her bellowing, "Aw, Will, cain't I walk sometimes?" etc., but just one of the many, many stories I still tell is when we did Fiddler with Michael again as lead, the amazing Chris Harrod and the Grammy Award-winning Lari White. There was a full cast scene where all the main men were wearing black choir-type robes. One night, we all got our robes mixed up and, being an Eastern Medicine poster for complete opposite body types, we couldn't have screwed it up any worse than we did. I was Ichabod Crane-tall-and-thin and wearing Chris "Pit Bull" Harrod's robe which only went to my elbows and knees, Chris was wearing Michael "Santa" Edwards' robe and was swimming so absurdly in it he looked like Dopey from Snow White. And as ridiculous as he and I looked, no one was as uncomfortable as poor Michael who ended up with my slip of a robe. His neck was bulging so badly, trying to burst free from that top button, I could swear I heard him gurgling. One by one, in this very somber scene, the cast caught on and first, the shoulders started shaking, then the lips quivered, and so on until somebody's voice cracked (probably mine-I was the Jimmy Fallon of the cast-could never keep it together!) and the entire cast started to heave with laughter. Michael stood up, pointed at Chris and me, and we all exchanged robes to the applause of the audience. As Michael said, that audience saw something they'd never forget.

How about interactions with patrons at the Barn? Totally cheating-another funny moment from the aforementioned Singing in the Rain-during the title song with those amazing curtains of rain on all four walls: As I was kicking up puddles of water, I got a bit too Beckham and full-on ripped a wig off some poor septuagenarian!

What was your favorite foodstuff on the buffet? I was just happy to eat but, quite frankly, the amazing spreads John and his family would have for our cast parties were off the chain!

For further details about upcoming events at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, call (615) 646-9977 or visit the company's website at www.dinnertheatre.com.

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