Steve Martin’s ‘Bright Star’ at local theater tells of secrets, redemption
The story a woman at two very different points in her life is at the center of the musical “Bright Star,” playing at the Glendale Centre Theatre.
Part of the musical is set when the woman is young and in love in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and, in the second half, when she is a magazine editor in Asheville, N.C., 22 years later. It’s based on true events.
Actress Linda Neel plays the woman at both stages of her life, and the play runs nonlinear in time going back and forth between the 1920s and 1940s.
Martin Lang returns to the Glendale Centre Theatre to direct “Bright Star,” after having directed productions such as “Footloose,” “Hairspray” and many other shows there.
“It’s one of the very last theaters in the round left in Los Angeles. It’s a very challenging space. It’s intimate, also,” he said.
Lang said when he started planning the production, he wanted it to flow nicely.
“Not too many scene changes or big long pauses. It has an almost cinematic flow to it,” he said.
“Bright Star” was co-written by well-known comedian Steve Martin with singer-songwriter Edie Brickell. It opened on March 24, 2016, and received good reviews.
The show went on to win the 2016 Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical and Best Score and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music.
It also received five Tony Award nominations — Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book, Best Lead Actress in a Musical and Best Orchestrations.
However, it was overshadowed at the Tony’s that theater season by the musical juggernaut “Hamilton.”.
“Bright Star” also won a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
While the Broadway production and other productions have taken a darker take, particularly during the first act, Lang knows local audiences and “rides tight on the edge” between light and dark, according to Brenda Dietlein, the local venue’s president and chief executive.
Lang agreed. “Sometimes you can soften the edges while still have an impact. The words take it to where it needs to go,” he said.
While at the core of the show there is heartache as well as secrets and betrayal, there are also redemption and the promise of tomorrow, Dietlein said.
“If you keep persevering, then the right thing will come at the right time,” she said.
“Bright Star” runs through March 14. For more information or tickets, call (818) 244-8481 or visit glendalecentretheatre.com.
