Submitted Photo

The "Noah - The Musical" set is quite extensive.

BRANSON, Mo. — They sure know how to put on a show in this part of the Ozarks. That flair for showmanship turned this small, southwest Missouri town into the kitsch and country music capital of the world in the latter part of the 20th century.

You can still find some country stars of yesteryear holding forth here (e.g., Joe Diffie, Jim Stafford). But increasingly the 76 Country Music Boulevard “strip” is dominated by elderly pop singers like Andy Williams, variety shows, magic acts and such broadly appealing attractions as amusement parks, outlet malls and the Titanic Museum.

Branson’s big addition this season was a new spectacular on the outskirts of town — “Noah — the Musical” in the sprawling Sight & Sound Theatre on Shepherd of the Hills Expressway. “Noah” features a cast of 45 human and 50 live-animal actors occupying a 300-foot-wide set that wraps around the audience on three sides.

“Noah” is the first venture outside New Jersey for the Eshelman family, which owns Sight & Sound and which has become known back East as “the Christian Broadway” for the high quality of its productions, which are based on Bible stories. Whereas a traditional Branson country-music show typically includes a gospel element, “Noah” makes the Bible the centerpiece of the action.

Submitted Photo

Noah and family celebrate the end of the rain.

Since Sight & Sound Theatre opened here May 24, it has been playing to good crowds, including some sell-outs of its 2,085 seats. “Noah” will run through October 2009, after which Sight & Sound plans to bring its “Miracle of Christmas” production to Branson.

Sight & Sound differs from Broadway in several important ways. Its mission is not to make money, but, rather, “to present the gospel of Jesus Christ and sow the word of God into the lives of our customers, guests and fellow workers ...” In that selfless spirit, there is no program listing the writers, actors or directors of the show.

What audiences get are state-of-the-art production values, spectacular sets and costumes and a cast that ranges from competent to quite good. None of the original tunes will make Stephen Sondheim lose any sleep. The real thrill for “Noah” goers — it drew gasps on the day I was there — is seeing the wrap-around ark set that opens Act 2, and the entrance of the animals, which trot up from their living quarters below the stage via a series of ramps that honeycomb the theater.

Tickets to “Noah — The Musical” are $49 for adults, $25 for teens and $15 for children. For more information, call (800) 377-1277 or visit sight-sound.com.

If “Noah” is the latest and greatest thing to hit Branson, it shares something in common with the area’s oldest attraction, the Shepherd of the Hills, namely spectacular staging and the use of live animals as part of the production.

“The Shepherd of the Hills” is a book by Harold Bell Wright that was published in 1907 and almost immediately began drawing tourists to the site of its setting, the Matthews family cabin and homestead near Branson. That is said to be the start of Branson’s tourist industry.

By the early 1920s, reenactments of the tale were being staged on the homestead, near the log cabin that became known as “Old Matt’s Cabin.” The cabin still stands today, and is on the National Historic Registry. The Old Mill amphitheater opened on the property in 1960 and has presented the story every summer since.

It’s a sort of Hillbilly Shakespeare, with hidden identity, madness, prejudice and marauding vigilantes (the infamous, hooded Bald Knobbers) figuring into the plot. The dirt “stage” itself is nearly the size of a football field and, at various points, men on horseback; horse-drawn wagons and herds of sheep hurtle past the audience. Perhaps the most spectacular aspect of the show is when actors portraying Bald Knobbers actually (partially, anyway) burn a cabin that is part of the set.

In addition to the almost-nightly productions of the play May through October, Shepherd of the Hills Entertainment Group offers homestead tours, a Sons of the Pioneers Chuckwagon Dinner Show and operates the 230-foot-tall Inspiration Tower, which offers panoramic views of the surrounding Ozarks hills and lakes.

Tickets to the play are $37 for adults; $18 for children ages 4 to 16. For reservations or more information, visit www.oldmatt.com.

Rick Hellman is editor of The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle, which is a sister paper of The News-Press.