Reba McEntire including "The New York Times", which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical, "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life". In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical "South Pacific" with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the "Great Performances" series in 2006. In October 2001, McEntire premiered
South Pacific (musical) allowed him to quit his job as an editor at Macmillan and to become a full-time writer. Over the next five decades, his lengthy, detailed novels centering on different places would dominate the bestseller lists. The role of Nellie Forbush was the first time with Hammerstein that Rodgers made the leading female role a belter, rather than a lyric soprano like Laurey in "Oklahoma!" and Julie in "Carousel". According to Mordden, "Nellie was something new in R&H, carrying a goodly share of the score on a 'Broadway' voice". Nellie does not sing together with Emile, because Rodgers promised Martin that