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    Patrick Gottsch, Champion of Rural TV Programming, Dies at 70

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    After a career as a satellite dish installer, he found success with RFD-TV, a 24-hour cable channel aimed at farmers and ranchers.A tractor-pulling contest in Rockwell, Iowa. “The Big Joe Polka Show.” A veterinarian discussing how to keep flies off cows. A rerun of a 1982 episode of “Hee Haw.”Those were some of the recent offerings on RFD-TV, a 24-hour channel created by Patrick Gottsch, a satellite-dish installer who had the idea to start a network aimed at the farmers and ranchers who were his customers.Its programing may not be the stuff of must-see television in urban and suburban America. But RFD-TV, which also carries gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Future Farmers of America convention, occupies an enduring, if narrow, niche on the television spectrum.Mr. Gottsch, whose spinoff properties include the Cowboy Channel, the Cowgirl Channel and Rural Radio, Channel 147 on SiriusXM, died on May 18 in Fort Worth. He was 70.His death, at a hotel in the city’s historic Stockyards district, was unexpected. His daughters Raquel Gottsch Koehler and Gatsby Gottsch Solheim said that the family was awaiting a medical examiner’s report to learn the cause, but that it was probably related to his history of diabetes.Mr. Gottsch, who grew up on a farm in Nebraska, fought tenaciously to prove that TV programming about agriculture, horses, the rural lifestyle and traditional country music could be viable — especially in his company’s early years, when, he liked to recall, investors and media executives told him that it was a “stupid idea” or that “farmers don’t watch TV.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Saltburn’ Mansion Has Film’s Fans Flocking to the English Countryside

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      A popular video on TikTok takes viewers to the site of Drayton House, where much of the movie was filmed.Drayton House, a privately owned mansion with more than a hundred rooms, has stood in Northamptonshire, England, for close to 700 years.For most of those seven centuries, the manor was a silent countryside presence, known mostly to locals or experts with a penchant for viewing beautiful homes owned by England’s upper classes.But that peace and quiet has changed since the release of “Saltburn” in November. Though the film largely didn’t impress critics, it has generated a flood of memes, jokes and commentary on the internet.And a pilgrimage to this once-quiet estate was made even easier after Rhian Williams, who lives nearby, posted detailed directions to the house in a TikTok video on New Year’s Day. Her clip ended up attracting more than 5.5 million views. She has since followed up with more videos, including another visit to the house as well as a visit to the local pub.“I haven’t got very many followers on TikTok,” Ms. Williams said in a phone interview. “I didn’t predict it,” she said.Drayton House, a Grade I building that is protected because of its historical nature, has been privately held for hundreds of years.Amazon StudiosWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      An Oklahoma Town’s Rescue Plan Has a Big Name: Reba McEntire

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      The country-music star is trying to revive her childhood home in Oklahoma with a restaurant, concert stage and lots of Reba memorabilia.ATOKA, Okla. — Year after year, eight million vehicles drove through this sleepy town just off U.S. Highway 75, which stretches from Texas to Canada. Almost none of them stopped.Atoka had fallen on hard times: Residents had moved away, and downtown buildings were decaying. Carol Ervin, its economic development director, began to plot how the city might lure even a small fraction of those drive-by travelers to visit.In the past two months, half a million guests have come to this southeastern Oklahoma community of 3,000. The reason can be summed up in four letters: Reba.Reba McEntire, the country-music star, grew up in Atoka County, and in January, she made good on a pivotal investment here. In a once-dilapidated former Masonic temple, she opened a restaurant, Reba’s Place — a 50-50 partnership with the Choctaw Nation, whose reservation includes Atoka. Upstairs is a gift shop selling Reba shot glasses and her clothing line for Dillard’s. Front and center is a concert stage, where Ms. McEntire headlined the grand opening with a performance of her greatest hits.In coming years, if all goes according to plan, Atoka will get an airport, a small water park, an amphitheater and boutique hotels. Several manufacturing and green energy companies are already setting up headquarters here.No one was more skeptical than Ms. McEntire when Ms. Ervin and her team broached the idea of a restaurant as a means of reigniting the local economy.“I thought it was a pipe dream,” the singer said over the phone from her home in Nashville as she prepared to kick off her 2023 nationwide tour. Yet “you have got to dream big to make it big.”Ms. McEntire signed on to the project because she thought it would help spur Atoka’s struggling economy.Choctaw NationCall it a convenient convergence: a music superstar, a well-resourced tribal nation, a heavily trafficked highway and an ambitious local government. “I put my money in on them,” Ms. McEntire said, “and they made things happen that I never thought could have happened.”The project is not so far-fetched in Oklahoma, which has a number of other celebrity-fronted businesses. In Pawhuska, where the Osage Nation is headquartered, the Pioneer Woman Mercantile, a restaurant opened seven years ago by the Food Network star Ree Drummond, draws about 6,000 guests a day. The country singers Blake Shelton and Toby Keith own bars within a two-hour drive of Atoka.But Ms. McEntire, 67, is arguably a bigger attraction than the others, with a 47-year career and 24 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. She has starred in films, Broadway musicals and several TV series, including her own hit sitcom, “Reba.”On a Saturday afternoon this month, that star power was on display in downtown Atoka. Crowds of McEntire fans — many of them dressed in glittery tops and tasseled jackets to mimic her signature style — lined up outside a stolid three-story brick building whose only trace of glitz was a tall red electric sign reading “Reba’s Place.” The wait time for a table was four hours.Inside was a shrine to the singer. Under a soaring ceiling, diners packed into booths made from old church pews and gazed at posters showcasing Ms. McEntire’s albums, movies and shows, which have traded on her friendly, just-plain-folks image.Dresses from Ms. McEntire’s most famous performances are on display in the restaurant.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesOn the third floor, guests can shop for all manner of Reba T-shirts.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesMemorabilia from Ms. McEntire’s concerts, movies and television shows cover the restaurant’s walls.Zerb Mellish for The New York Times“Reba is about faith, she is about family, she is about culture,” said Gary Batton, the chief of the Choctaw Nation, the third-largest tribe in the United States. He knew Ms. McEntire from her performances in Choctaw casinos, and jumped at the chance to partner with her again.Diners lucky enough to snag a table dug into slabs of chicken-fried steak slathered in a pleasantly sweet gravy, and pinto beans served with a towering wedge of cornbread — Southern foods that reflect Ms. McEntire’s life and career. They ogled the bedazzled red dress the singer wore on her 1995 tour, one of several outfits on display. Onstage, a local musician, Wyatt Justice, crooned country songs next to a wall-size American flag.“I saw the big sign and then kind of slowed down,” said Donita Clay, who had driven about 90 miles from Broken Bow, Okla. “I am a Reba fan. Who isn’t?”Down the street, Boggy Bottom Antiques & Collectibles was filled with customers browsing “Dolly/Reba 2024” T-shirts while they waited for a table. Tracy Jones, a co-owner, said sales had at least doubled in the last two months. At the Vault, a wine bar across the street from Reba’s Place, Saturday sales had quadrupled, said the owner, Janny Copeland.“We are getting a Starbucks,” she said. “I don’t care what anybody says, we wouldn’t get a Starbucks here if Reba’s wasn’t coming here.”Atoka wasn’t always a small town. In the 20th century, it was home to a booming coal-mining industry and a stop along the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway. In the 1970s, the furniture retailer Ethan Allen and the Wrangler jeans company opened factories in Atoka, but closed them in 2006. The city lost almost 600 jobs. Last October, according to census data, nearly one in five Atoka County residents lived in poverty.“A city is a living, breathing entity,” Ms. Ervin said. “It is either growing or it is dying. And we were dying.”She said she tried to persuade companies to set up shop in town, but they told her, “We need a place where our people will want to live, and that is not Atoka, Oklahoma.”A downtown street is named for Ms. McEntire, who grew up in Atoka County.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesSince opening in January, Reba’s Place has attracted 500,000 visitors.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesCarol Ervin, Atoka’s economic development director, saw Reba’s Place as the first step in an ambitious plan to redevelop the city. Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesAbout five years ago, Ms. Ervin and other city officials, including Mayor Brian Cathey, began working on a plan to revive downtown. Then the pandemic hit. Ms. McEntire moved home to take care of her mother, who was dying of cancer, and spent several months here in quarantine.The singer had a history of helping out locally. Starting in 1987, she staged several concerts in nearby Denison, Texas, to raise money for the Texoma Medical Center, whose rehabilitation clinic is known as Reba Rehab. Now she was looking for “a legacy project,” Ms. Ervin said.Presented with the proposal for Reba’s Place, Ms. McEntire agreed to put up half the money, and the Choctaw Nation provided the remainder. The total investment was “several million,” said Kurtess Mortensen, the restaurant’s chef and the Nation’s executive director of retail, brand and merchandising. Any profits will be split between the Nation and Ms. McEntire, but Mr. Mortensen said, “This is not going to be a big moneymaker.”Ms. Entire concurred. “I know it is a very tough industry.,” she said. “There is more to life than money.”The Choctaw Nation draws most of its revenue from its 22 casinos throughout Oklahoma, and plans to spend the earnings from Reba’s Place on health, education and housing initiatives for the reservation. In Atoka, the Nation has already established housing, a health clinic, a community center and opened franchises of chain restaurants, like Chili’s.At Reba’s Place, about half of the 134 employees are members of a federally recognized tribe. The restaurant also serves beef raised and slaughtered on the Choctaw Nation, and its gift shop will soon sell items made by tribal members. Mr. Batton, the chief, said he hopes to open more locations of Reba’s Place in other parts of the reservation.Gary Batton, the chief of the Choctaw Nation, said Reba’s Place is bringing jobs and revenue to the reservation, which includes Atoka.Choctaw NationThe city has also invested in the project. The Atoka City Industrial Development Authority bought the building for $200,000 in 2020, then turned it over to the restaurant in return for an equal value in payments and services. Reba’s Place also receives rebates on a portion of city sales tax. (Ms. McEntire provided the restaurant with her money, name and memorabilia, but is not involved in daily operations.)Mr. Mortensen, the chef of Reba’s Place, is no stranger to bringing a big-time restaurant to a small town. He ran the Pioneer Woman Mercantile for five years.With the Mercantile, he said, “we were creating Disneyland, Main Street U.S.A.” But many Pawhuskans were unhappy with the sudden surge in traffic. In Atoka, Mr. Mortensen has held several community meetings to allow residents to voice concerns.“I have been yelled at and thanked and everything in between,” he said.One of the restaurant’s signature dishes is chicken-fried steak, a favorite of Ms. McEntire.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesThe charcuterie comes with country ham and boiled peanut hummus, and is served on a board shaped like Oklahoma.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesThe cooks at Reba’s Place make well above the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesMany people worried that there wouldn’t be enough parking. But others were excited by the prospect of jobs that paid more than the state and federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13 an hour. At Reba’s Place, servers start at $8 an hour, cooks start at $14 and every full-time employee is eligible for health benefits.Before she was hired as a server at Reba’s Place, Christy Pittman ran a spa that she had to shut down when the pandemic started.“I went to college, I had the degrees, I had everything I needed,” she said. But in Atoka, “there just wasn’t enough quality jobs.” She now makes enough to get her nails done.Wyatt Delay, who works in the gift shop, said he was amazed by how many people had traveled from outside the state to visit. “We have had somebody from the Virgin Islands, New York, Michigan, Oregon, Washington State.”Holly Gleason, a music critic in Nashville, said she wasn’t surprised, as Ms. McEntire has one of the widest audiences of any country star. “Everybody agrees on Reba: Black, white, Native American, Asian, L.G.B.T.Q., Bible-thumping Christians,” she said.And while other country musicians have collaborated with national corporations to open their establishments, Ms. McEntire chose a local partner in the Choctaw Nation. “She is really making it a tried-and-true, this-is-who-we-are experience,” Ms. Gleason said.Still, several locals said they can’t afford to eat at Reba’s Place. “Unless there were more cheaper prices for us common folk, I won’t be going over there,” said Ruby Bolding, a retired artist. She was eating dinner at Cazadorez, a Mexican restaurant where steak fajitas cost $12.99. At Reba’s Place, the chicken-fried steak is $27.“But that doesn’t mean I am not glad it is here,” she added, “because it does bring in a lot of people. I love Reba, and I so relate to her.”The illuminated sign for Reba’s Place is visible from U.S. Highway 75. Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesMax Lane, a retired teacher who was attending service at Cornerstone Church — where Ms. McEntire’s brother-in-law Mark Eaton is the pastor — said a “fancy” spot like Reba’s Place didn’t attract him. “I would rather go to the Dairy Queen.”Ms. McEntire defended the restaurant’s prices. “It is not quick, out of a bag, throw it in a microwave — it is quality, handmade food,” she said.Plenty of others agree. In February, Reba’s Place made about $130,000 a week in revenue, and since the restaurant started taking reservations in early March, “people have been calling pretty constantly,” Mr. Mortensen said. This month, a speakeasy will open on the third floor.Could Reba’s Place grow to become the next Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s Tennessee amusement park? “I don’t know if I could ever touch that,” Ms. McEntire said.Ms. Ervin, who helped hatch the project, is more optimistic. “I think Reba’s could be bigger than Pawhuska or Tishimingo,” she said, referring to Ms. Drummond’s and Mr. Shelton’s businesses. With the highway running through it, Atoka already has more drive-by traffic than those towns.And most important, she said, it has Reba.Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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      in Music

      True Love Can Leave Traces. S.G. Goodman’s Detailed Songs Do, Too.

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      The Kentucky musician’s second album, “Teeth Marks,” is steeped in Southern songwriting, but not tethered to anything beyond its creator’s own truths.MURRAY, Ky. — S.G. Goodman was looking for the perfect sentence. Sitting in her midcentury-modern living room in this small college town and steadfastly ignoring the whines of her balding terrier, Howard, the singer-songwriter flipped through a copy of “My People’s Waltz,” the Pulitzer-nominated 1999 short-story collection by her mentor and friend Dale Ray Phillips.“All of his sentences are so beautiful and economical,” she said, failing to locate the one she had in mind. “He taught me that a really good way to understand what feelings you’re trying to capture is by reading something like a short story or a novel and really paying attention to the moments or images that make your stomach turn a little.”Goodman has put those lessons to good use, especially on her second album, “Teeth Marks,” out Friday. She approaches her songs as though they were stories, emphasizing character and scene. Over a clutch of tender, twangy guitar notes on the LP’s title track, she sings, “When you left the bed, after you bit my arm. A little souvenir, where your teeth left marks.” Her voice is an intimate whisper, her phrasing defined by her West Kentucky accent, and the image itself is both playful and painful. Love — especially unrequited love — leaves a physical impact, an idea she explores throughout the album.With her sharp eye for character and scene and her arresting voice — which sounds like it could be emanating from a century-old 78 — Goodman, 33, is the latest in a wave of Kentucky artists who divine inspiration from their home state. Like Kelsey Waldon from Monkey’s Eyebrow, Joan Shelley from Louisville and Tyler Childers from Lawrence County, she embraces the freedom of making music far from Nashville and New York. Her songs don’t stray too far from home, although they do speak to issues and ideas much larger than her hometown.“It’s important to represent the South and rural places with a beauty and complexity,” Goodman said, adjusting her glasses and running her hand through the thick brown hair that has become her signature. “I don’t think that can be done by someone who just decided that they like the style of music that typically portrays those places. You write out of a region. You don’t write into it.”Western Kentucky has left its marks on Goodman and her songs. She was raised in Hickman, right on the Mississippi River, and she’s quick to point that “Mark Twain actually called it ‘a pretty town, perched on a handsome hill.’” It’s “mostly dilapidated now,” she noted, “but it’s still charming and beautiful.” Her family were sharecroppers, responsible for thousands of acres of wheat, corn and soybeans. Each summer, Goodman’s father would plant sweet corn for each of his children, and they would be responsible for harvesting and selling the crop. After tithing at the local Baptist church, profits would go toward buying school clothes.“When I signed my record contract, I knew that I wasn’t going to keep my sexuality a secret,” Goodman said.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesGoodman left Hickman in 2007 to attend Murray State University, in this small town in the western corner of the state. After studying philosophy and creative writing, she has become a local historian with a deep knowledge of the region and its eccentric characters. She’ll drive you down Route 641 to Puryear, Tenn., a well-worn route to buy beer in the nearest wet county. And on the way she’ll point out where the Big Apple Café once stood, welcoming Black and white clientele even when other area establishments were still segregated.“When the town wasn’t ready to progress, these were places where change could happen,” she explained. “They hosted different types of people and outlooks, and they’ve been a life force for people in rural communities.”She’ll also take you by Terrapin Station, a strip mall record store that serves as the hub of the lively scene in Murray, stocking merch from local bands and occasionally hosting shows. This is where Goodman got her start as a musician, buying records and playing bills with local punk bands.“I remember her coming into the store years ago with a goody bag of homemade CDs,” said Tim Peyton, one of Terrapin’s owners, who plays in the local post-punk band Quailbones. “She didn’t want to sell them. She wanted us to give them away to people. Just sneak it in somebody’s bag. That’s how she introduced herself. Now she’s making a name for herself, but it’s amazing that she’s doing it while staying here in Murray.”To record “Teeth Marks,” however, Goodman had to leave town. She and her backing band of Murray musicians drove the eight hours down to Athens, Ga., to record with the co-producer Drew Vandenberg at Chase Park Transduction Studios. “One of the things that she and I really connected on was just being into so many different kinds of music,” Vandenberg said. “She didn’t want to just make a country record.”The 11-track album encompasses country music, spartan post-punk and high-lonesome Appalachian balladry, everything tied together by Goodman’s indelible vocals. For the stark “You Were Someone I Loved,” which features Goodman singing with no accompaniment, Vandenberg let her have the run of the studio. “It was like one of those experiments where the act of observing something changes what it’s going to do,” he explained. “So I left the tape rolling and left her alone, just so she didn’t have to worry about this person staring at her through the glass.”“It’s important to represent the South and rural places with a beauty and complexity,” Goodman said.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesEspecially on “Teeth Marks,” Goodman selects her details precisely, the better to make you squirm when she says a prayer for a dead squirrel, or counts the 32 voice mail messages she received one day, asking if she’s OK. Or when she discloses the object of her unrequited love on the spare “Patron Saint of the Dollar Store”: “Know I found heaven lying in a woman’s arms.” It’s the most explicit description of the subject of her love songs, and it further complicates the stories she’s telling: She knows that small towns and rural communities, even her beloved Murray, are often perceived as being hostile to those who identify as queer.“When I signed my record contract, I knew that I wasn’t going to keep my sexuality a secret,” she said, pausing to choose her words carefully. “Me being queer had been known to most everyone in my life.” When journalists covering her 2020 album, “Old Time Feeling,” described her as a queer singer-songwriter, it outed her to even more people, yanking her own story out of her control. “It was a disappointment,” she said, “because I felt like people might be happy for me releasing an album, but I realized that there will always be people who won’t get behind me, no matter what I’m doing. Because I’m going to be doing it while I’m gay.”As dedicated as she is to creating art in Murray and mapping the region in her music, Goodman is spending less time in her hometown and more on the road. As she pulled Howard into her lap, she said, “I have a stronger idea of where I’m from and my situation here, no matter where I’m at in the world. I’m really not sure if I’ll ever be able to remove myself from this place.” More

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      in Theater

      Finding a New Theater Audience, Far From France’s Cities

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      In rural gardens, forests and public squares, young stage artists fed up with the country’s rigid scene are striving for diversity and spontaneity.MAURENS, France — The village of Maurens, 300 miles south of Paris, has a population of around 1,000. It has a church; a single bakery; and, since 2013, a summer theater festival, the Théâtre du Roi de Coeur.One recent evening, the scale of the event’s ambition was obvious. On an open-air wooden stage, a cast of 12 put impressive energy into “Fanny, Me and the Others,” a four-hour adaptation of a Marcel Pagnol trilogy. Even when a drizzle started, the members of audience, sitting on chairs and haystacks, opened their umbrellas and stayed put.The Roi de Coeur isn’t alone in bringing large-scale theater to rural backyards. It is one of 17 founding members of France’s Federation of Local Festivals and Theaters, which got underway last month at the Avignon Festival. Its members, dotted around the country in areas with few playhouses, have come together to show that rural theater can compete with bigger city stages, and to push for greater recognition of their contribution to France’s cultural ecosystem.Behind the initiative is a group of millennials, who graduated from top drama schools and found themselves frustrated with the rigid structure of France’s theater world. While the performing arts in the country receive generous public funding, a significant portion goes to state-backed playhouses in large cities. Competition to get independent projects off the ground is fierce; young artists have complained for years about the cost of attending the crowded Avignon Fringe, for instance.Pélagie Papillon, left, and Martin Jaspar in “Fanny, Me and the Others.” Sébastien AngladaChloé de Broca, who started the Roi de Coeur with Félix Beaupérin, said they were warned as students about the profession’s harsh reality. “We knew very quickly that big productions with a large cast were reserved to an elite of sorts,” she said.Unaware of one another at first, the federation’s members carved an alternative path, turning to “spaces not originally meant for theater,” as their official charter puts it. These include gardens, forests, private residences and public squares. The Roi de Coeur’s two stages are installed every year on the property of de Broca’s sister-in-law. Other festivals tour small cities and villages. La Luzège, which is based just east of the Roi de Coeur, stages productions in different venues every night from mid-July to mid-August. Theater doesn’t get much more adaptable than that. Last week, because of the rain, La Luzège moved “Bon Appétit, Messieurs!,” a show inspired by Victor Hugo’s writings, from a garden to a nearby community center with five minutes’ notice.With its focus on underserved rural communities, the federation is finding new audiences. The first wave of cultural decentralization in France, initiated by postwar governments, aimed to break Paris’s stranglehold on artistic life and redirected funding to midsize cities — but often stopped there. “This is a new decentralization. We’re reaching people where they are,” said Romane Ponty-Bésanger, one of La Luzège’s co-directors.Fabrice Henry, left, and Ambroise Daulhac in “Bon Appétit, Messieurs!,” directed by Victor Calcine and Romane Ponty-Bésanger at La Luzège en Corrèze.Victor CalcineSome locals are delighted. Séverine Bonnier, who co-owns a bed-and-breakfast, Ô Vents d’Anges, in Maurens, saw all four of the Roi de Coeur’s productions this year; they were the first performances she’d seen since moving to the area a few years ago, she said. “It’s a matter of time, between work and two children at home,” she added. Some festivals in the federation focus on classic, family-friendly titles, while others stage contemporary plays. One common feature, however, is the absence of a single artistic director: Most operate as collectives. There are four co-directors at La Luzège, and de Broca and Beaupérin make decisions with six others at the Roi de Coeur. Roles are fluid, too. Actors might direct, or help with sets, costumes and other tasks, like tending bar. Nicolas Grosrichard (César in “Fanny, Me and the Others”) wrote a witty short play for children this year, “Anne the Pirate.” They also work fast. While the traditional funding model for independent French theatermakers allows for one creation every other year, most of the federation’s members put together between three and six productions every 12 months. Rehearsal time is limited, and finesse sometimes sacrificed. In the case of “Fanny, Marius and the Others,” conflicts between characters turned into shouting matches, without the nuance more preparation might have afforded.“We’re looking for diversity and spontaneity,” de Broca said. “It’s almost unfinished theater, but it makes it even more alive. The artists are sharing their research with the audience, and people really respond to that.”The Nouveau Théâtre Populaire, founded in the Loire village of Fontaine-Guérin in 2009 and run by an 18-member collective, has become the blueprint for this new generation of local festivals. (The Roi de Coeur was modeled on it, de Broca said.) Matthieu Kassimo, left, and Dorothée Le Troadec in “Anne the Pirate,” directed by Nicolas Grosrichard at the Théâtre du Roi de Coeur.Sébastien MazetIt began when the grandmother of an actor, Lazare Herson-Macarel, allowed the organizers to take over her backyard. After her death in 2012, a crowdfunding campaign raised 70,000 euros, about $82,000, to keep the festival going on her property, and the local authorities opted to buy it and lease it without charge to the collective.The festival’s audience has kept growing, and in 2019, before the pandemic, it attracted around 10,000 visitors. Last month, it achieved a different milestone when the Avignon Festival, the most prestigious event in French theater, featured one of its productions, “The Sky, the Night and the Party,” a six-hour trilogy of Molière plays. The three plays will alternate this month in Fontaine-Guérin.The theater establishment may be waking up to the vitality of rural festivals, but there is still a long way to go, the federation’s members say. Economically, festivals remain fragile, especially during the pandemic, and they often fall outside the criteria for local and regional funding. “Performances in rural settings aren’t recognized as ‘real’ performances, because they don’t take place in identified venues,” Pauline Bolcatto, a member of the Nouveau Théâtre Populaire and one of the federation’s architects, said in a phone interview.This summer, the federation’s members exchanged tips and information, Bolcatto said, and discussed how best to implement France’s new health pass, a government policy that requires businesses and event organizers to check proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test before admitting patrons.The noise generated by daily outdoor performances hasn’t been to everyone’s taste in quiet countryside spots. In 2019, the Nouveau Théâtre Populaire had to fight a lawsuit initiated by a neighbor; rulings so far have been in the troupe’s favor. The Roi du Coeur also faced complaints, and found a compromise: The festival will continue in its current form until the tenth edition, in 2023, and will then move to a yet-to-be-decided location.“The Sky, the Night and the Party — Psyché,” directed by Julien Romelard at Nouveau Théâtre Populaire, part of the Avignon Festival.Christophe Raynaud de Lage/Avignon FestivalStill, a chance visit may open unexpected doors. Étienne Fraday, who played the leading role of Césario in “Fanny, Me and the Others,” was working as a boilermaker when he fell in love with the Roi de Coeur in 2016. After being a volunteer for two years, he decided to retrain as an actor, and is currently studying at the prestigious Court Florent in Paris. “This adventure has changed some lives,” de Broca said. More