A Dolly Parton tribute show booked long before her death is now set to double as a memorial when it hits the stage at the Palace Theatre in Greensburg on October 1. Tickets remain available for the performance, called Backwoods Barbie, which was scheduled at the historic Westmoreland County venue before Parton died on Tuesday.
Parton, the country music icon, died August 25, 2026, at age 80 at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Tennessee following a brief battle with cancer, according to the Los Angeles Times. Her representatives confirmed she passed away surrounded by loved ones. The Backwoods Barbie show was booked to appear at the Palace Theatre before her passing, according to CBS Pittsburgh, but the timing means what was planned as a celebratory homage now arrives as the region processes the loss of an icon.
The tribute stars Canadian vocalist Daphne Moens, who has performed as Dolly Parton on and off since 2012 and began booking international performances in the role this year, per the same report. Moens has toured as Parton across the United States and Canada, and her stage background includes musical theater credits in productions such as Rock of Ages, Footloose, Freaky Friday, and Legally Blonde, along with work as a featured vocalist for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, according to her official website.
A Joyful Tribute, Now With Added Weight
Moens said she wants audiences to hear the music, dance along, and leave feeling amazing, and that she wants her shows to be a joyful and positive tribute to Parton, per the CBS Pittsburgh report. The Backwoods Barbie set list includes both hits and deep cuts from Parton's catalog. Moens named “Travelin' Thru” as her favorite song to perform — the track Parton wrote and recorded for the 2005 film Transamerica, which earned a nomination for Best Original Song at the 78th Academy Awards, according to Wide Open Country. Parton reportedly wrote the song in one day on her tour bus, inspired by transgender friends and her own feelings as an outsider.
Moens performs backed by Canada's Casino Brothers Band, a tribute ensemble that also accompanies her in joint Dolly Parton and Elvis Presley tribute concerts and performs live arrangements of Parton's classic hits across North America, according to the Wellington Advertiser. Parton herself never performed at the Palace Theatre during her lifetime, per the seed reporting, making Moens' tribute the closest the Greensburg stage will come to hosting her music.
A Century-Old Stage Marks Its Own Milestone
The Palace Theatre carries its own hundred-year history, having originally opened on September 2, 1926, as the $750,000 Manos Theatre, a 2,100-seat venue that hosted vaudeville acts, silent films, and organ performances on a Wurlitzer, according to the Observer-Reporter. The building was designed with French Renaissance architecture and hand-painted fairy tale murals. Today the venue seats 1,367 patrons across its orchestra, loge, upper balcony, pit, and opera box sections, drawing more than 85,000 guests annually across over 100 events as a self-supporting performing arts center, per the Westmoreland Cultural Trust.
The theater survived a close call decades ago: a local non-profit acquired the Palace in 1990 to stop a former owner from selling it to an out-of-state developer who planned to demolish the building, the Observer-Reporter reports. That grassroots organization later evolved into the Westmoreland Cultural Trust, which now operates the venue. The Backwoods Barbie tribute lands squarely within the Trust's centennial celebration calendar, which also includes a black-tie Centennial Grand Gala on September 19 and a public concert the following night featuring Grammy winner LeAnn Rimes, marking her first Pittsburgh-region concert in nearly seven years.
Booking Live Music Remains a Financial Balancing Act
Staging touring acts at the Palace Theatre typically costs the venue between $60,000 and $75,000 per show, according to The Royal, meaning the theater's finances lean heavily on local ticket sales for any given booking. Theater staff have noted that shifting audience tastes shape which acts get booked across genres, underscoring the stakes for a tribute show that has now taken on unplanned significance for regional fans.
The Greensburg concert joins a wave of memorial gestures unfolding nationwide since Parton's death, including plans to illuminate the Hernando de Soto Bridge over the Mississippi River in Memphis in pink lights, a display organized by the non-profit Mighty Lights, as Hoodline previously reported. With tickets still available for October 1, the Palace Theatre's Backwoods Barbie performance now stands as Westmoreland County's own entry in that broader outpouring, even though it was never originally conceived as one.
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