Kentucky's oldest outdoor theater is celebrating its 75th year of operation.

Pioneer Playhouse in Danville is a family function, and it brings the lights of Broadway to the Bluegrass State.

How this dinner theater came to be and how the brother sister duo running the place worked to honor their father's legacy.

Here's a peek at this theater under the stars in this week's Tapestry.

Pioneer Playhouse is Kentucky's oldest outdoor theater.

We have been around since 1949, and we've been doing what we do for 75 years.

My father grew up.

Evan Hansen grew up in Danville, Kentucky, on Main Street.

He actually grew up in the Hanson Hotel.

But my father decided, I'm going to go to New York City and I'm going to study theater.

And that's what he did.

And in his class in New York City, he was with Harry Belafonte, Tony Curtis, Bea Arthur.

So there were a lot of future stars in this class, and it was pretty exciting.

And so he almost got on Broadway.

He was about to make his big break on Broadway.

And his father called him home to Danville, Kentucky, because he had become ill and he needed someone to run his property and take care of his wife, my grandmother.

And so dad came home and he decided, if I can't be on Broadway, I'm going to bring Broadway to the bluegrass.

And we will bring in a company of actors.

And that will be a core company that acts in all three plays.

They live here, they work here, they eat here, they sleep here.

And they oftentimes they will be rehearsing one different play during the day and performing another play at night.

And they do that five nights a week and then we call it a strike weekend when they change over to the next play and then they will start rehearsing the third play and performing the second play at night.

So it's eating, living, breathing, performing theater.

This is my first summer performing here at Pioneer Playhouse.

My grandmother had been coming here for a long time and she took me as a child.

So this became a big part of why I chose to pursue theater, because the shows here were just so phenomenal.

And Kentucky has such a unique arts history, and Pioneer Playhouse is a perfect example of that.

One of the things we love to see is generations at Pioneer Playhouse.

You know, someone will have grown up going here, so they bring their kid and then their kids bring their kids.

And so sometimes we'll have three or four generations in an audience.

I had heard about Pioneer Playhouse from my grandmother originally.

She mentioned it that her and my grandfather used to come here well before I was born, so I've heard about it a lot.

It's really exciting getting to be able to come back and to do shows here.

A place that my family has come for many years and to get to be a part of this great tradition and to continue to keep bringing them back, it's a lot of fun to do, to continue to be a part of this great theater and to bring the arts not only to my family, but much more importantly to all the people in in this area.

I love continuing the tradition of bringing arts to Kentucky because we love this state.

My sister loves this state, and I do too.

And we think that the arts brighten our lives.

The arts helps us communicate better.

The arts raises our self-esteem.

And, you know, there's just a whole lot of positivity from promoting the arts in our state of Kentucky.

There's a little bit of Hollywood, a little bit of history, a little bit of glitz and a lot of memories in this place.

Once you come, you really fall in love with Pioneer Playhouse and it's kind of magic.

And I think that's why we keep calling people.

These years.

This summer.

Pioneer Playhouse has shows running through August 17th.