Travel → Maine: The Pine Tree State →
Brownfield, ME: Stone Mountain Music
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Before they could open a dinner theater hosting national acts and serving gourmet pizzas, fancy salads, fine wines, and imported beers, however, Carol and Jeff faced endless obstacles. If they didn't pick an opening date, they'd miss the summer tourists. The first show would be August 5, 2006. But not even Jeff, the hardest-working man in Maine, could do it all.
With only a month to go, he still had to Sheetrock the walls and lay the hardwood floors. Rain poured into the building. The couple who'd booked the center for their mid-August wedding expressed concern. "You're the least of my problems," said Carol. "I've got Ralph Stanley coming!"
Jeff hired another local guy to work day and night. They lined the balcony with old barn wood and installed 50 refurbished 1930s seats salvaged from the Boston Opera House. They lit the rafters with tall ironwork lights salvaged from a church. The dressing room wasn't ready for Stanley, but everything else was.
The grand opening packed out. The wedding went beautifully. The stars lined up: Mary Chapin Carpenter, the Indigo Girls, Mavis Staples, Bela Fleck, the Capitol Steps, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason. There was music for everyone -- folk, Celtic, blues, Cajun, bluegrass, country, classical -- and from all over New England, people came.
Carol's efforts rippled out to her neighbors, who came to work the shows; to local artists like Becca Van Fleet, who made mugs for the center; to area B&Bs, such as The Inn at Crystal Lake, which offered a Stone Mountain getaway complete with tickets and a shuttle to the show.
The scenic drive, however, proved challenging for musicians maneuvering tour buses and towing trailers. Marty Stuart's vehicle got stopped by a tree felled in a snowstorm at 4 in the morning and had to back half a mile down Dugway Road. Kathy Mattea's bus missed the turn, jackknifed in the snow, and had to be rescued by a neighbor with a backhoe. Carol figured that'd be the last of those musicians, but they loved it, and rebooked.
The audiences loved it, too, especially the monthly Stone Mountain Live shows -- Maine's version of "A Prairie Home Companion". Today, Carol not only writes and produces them but also works the kitchen shift with Jeff and their neighbors. Just before 8, she whips off her apron, lets down her hair, and makes her way through the crowded tables.
Stepping onstage, with the barn's tall windows glowing dusk blue behind her, with tree limbs twinkling on either side and Oriental rugs at her feet, Carol stands in the intimacy of what could be her living room -- but what just may be New England's finest listening room.
The bar closes; food service stops. She takes up her guitar, and the musicians join in. Gradually, she lets the details of work ease away and the music fill in. At some point, she catches Jeff's smile and knows he's thinking the same thing she is: "We created this, but now it's gone beyond us." The applause thunders, and the audience belts out the closing refrain:
Well, we've come to the end of our little show.
Please drive safe and please drive slow.
As you drive down the hill, please check out your brakes.
We don't want you to run into Irving Potter's place.
It's Brownfield, after all -- a lovely, unlikely place.
Video: Carol Noonan sings She Walked Through the Fair
Reader Comments
Comment from Harry McCluskey on March 30, 2008
Looks like a place we would like to go.
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