Singer-turned-actress's tour to make Pa. stop with Paisley

This country music diva, who's hit No. 1 30 times, has branched into movies, Broadway and clothes.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Reba McEntire is the hardest-working woman in show business.
The red-headed Oklahoma firebrand has just finished taping the fourth season of her hit sitcom "Reba," launched the Reba clothing line through Dillard's department stores and begun a 25-city American tour that will have her singing in front of a half-million people.
The tour, which features fellow country stars Brad Paisley and Terri Clark, began at the end of April and continues through mid-June. She'll play the Post Gazette Pavilion At Star Lake in Burgettstown, Pa., at 7 Saturday night with Brad Paisley.
When it ends, McEntire, who has hit No. 1 on the country chart 30 times, will voice a character for an animated remake of "Charlotte's Web," sing on a movie soundtrack for Disney and play the part of Nellie Forbush in a one-night charity performance of "South Pacific" at Carnegie Hall.
That's just the first half of this year.
"I never went out looking for any of this stuff," she said by phone from her Nashville office. "...I have the choice of either taking the opportunity to be a part of it, or I pass on it. And I usually say 'Boy, if I don't take it, it's gonna go to somebody else.'"
In 2001, she was offered the starring role in a Broadway revival of "Annie Get Your Gun." She'd never been in a play before, on any stage, but in true Reba fashion, she accepted the challenge.
"I never, ever considered 'What am I getting myself into? What do I know about it?" McEntire said as she laughed. "I wanted to be Annie Oakley so bad, and after I watched that show, that's all I had on my mind."
She stayed on Broadway for five months and then launched her TV show.
"I feel like I've worked 29 years getting where I am today," she said, "and now the things that I get to do are more fun for me than work."
Clothes
The Reba clothing line was the brainchild of someone at Dillard's.
"I sat in a two-hour meeting," McEntire said, "listening to them tell about the clothes -- the fabrics, designs and patterns -- and after two hours, they said 'What do you think?'
"And I said 'Guys, I wouldn't wear a thing you showed me today, and I'm not about to put my name on it. Sorry,'" she said.
McEntire then got stacks of clothing catalogs and ripped out pages, creating a "huge file" to send to the Dillard's people.
"It was stuff I liked and didn't like," she said. "And at the next meeting, it was 100 percent better. And I said 'I think I can work with you guys.'"
She said she's involved in the ongoing evolution of the line, flying to New York to watch "fit models" and making suggestions to the designers.
"I've been working with designers for all these years, and I learned a lot from them," she said. "I never had found one line of clothing that had everything. So I had to mix and match. Now, I've got a clothing line that I really do like."