McEntire Makes a New Kind of Music

In the pilot episode of her new WB sitcom “Reba,” singer- turned-actress Reba McEntire learns that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant and that her husband of 20 years is leaving to marry his young dental assistant. In exasperation, she yells: “Why is ours the only house in Texas without a gun?”

Maybe series creator Allison M. Gibson, one of the writers for “Home Improvement” and producer of “Boy Meets World,” set it up that way knowing that if they did put a rifle in her hands, McEntire would know how to handle it.

Earlier this year, she wowed Broadway with her performance as sharpshooter Annie Oakley in the revival of the Irving Berlin musical “Annie Get Your Gun.”

Now she’s getting her first shot at a weekly TV series in “Reba,” which premieres Sept. 25. Set in an upper-middle-class Texas neighborhood, the show casts McEntire as a mother of three who is left by her philandering husband, played by Christopher Rich. “I had looked at a lot of scripts. We’d gone to L.A. to visit with network people, writers, producers, show runners, everyone,” McEntire, 47, said after shooting the pilot. “I spent a lot of time and energy, but nothing seemed to come of it.”

But McEntire believes timing is everything. “My husband, Narvel [Blackstock, who also is her manager], and I have this philosophy: If a project is supposed to happen, it will happen,”

McEntire said. “If it doesn’t, don’t cry your eyes out; just get on with life and maybe something will work out later.”

That’s the way it happened after she had spent a good three or four years reviewing scripts.

“Then last September, this [‘Reba’] script came to me,” she said. “I thought it was funny and that it had a great message about a mama dealing with this dilemma in her family. “It’s a double-barreled situation,” she said, “and she’s dealing with it the the best she can, not only being a society woman, but also the way she’s helping her two other younger children cope. That really touched my heart.

“It was funny, but it was also meaty,” McEntire said. “It had depth to it; it wasn’t just 30 minutes of situation comedy. That’s what really appealed to me.”

It also puts the show in line with many of the songs she’s recorded--songs that have frequently touched on issues of women being left to fend for themselves, and discovering new strength in adversity. Such material has made her a rare voice for female empowerment in country music.

The new show uses her empowerment anthem “I’m a Survivor” as the opening theme, but don’t expect to see her break into a new number each week. This isn’t “The Monkees.”

“Allison, Mindy [Schultheis] and Michael [Hanel, the show’s three executive producers] and I have talked about that. If I do any more singing in the show,” she said, “it’ll be in some kind of natural setting, like singing the children to sleep.”

She’s also not forcing her ideas on the show’s creators to keep the character’s views in line with her own.

“I’m treating this like when I started in the recording business, and when I started into theater,” she said. “If I can give a suggestion or an idea, I might, but I’m watching the professionals who have been doing this long before I came along. I just sit back and do the acting.”

“Reba,” can be seen Fridays at 9 p.m. on the WB.