playbill vip

Welcome to Bright Star!  This is the culmination of a journey that began in 2019, a journey that all began with a simple Facebook post.  I was tagged in a comment by my friend, Tamara Wright, along with some other theatrical producers in the area asking a simple question, "Why haven't any of you produced Bright Star?"

For me, the answer was quite simple,  I had never heard of it.  Bright Star ran for 30 previews and 109 performances in 2016 on Broadway and was nominated for multiple Tony's.  2016 was also the debut year of Hamliton, so one might surmise that all the oxygen on Broadway for new musicals, might have been sucked up by Lin-Manuel Miranda's juggernaught.  

One slow afternoon at the theatre, I decided to do a little research.  A few youtube "slime tutorials" later and I was hooked.  Immediately after watching it, I forced my former techincal director and now famous chef Dan Kopera on the stage to figure out how we could fit this big broadway musical in our space.  With Dan's assurance we could make it work, I added it to our season consideration list.

So here we are, 3+ years later, and Bright Star is finally having its premiere in the Shelby County metro area.  (At least I don't think any school group has done it in the area yet.)  I hope all of you in attendance experience the same thing I did upon my first viewing and fall in love with this beautiful story of family, loss, and redemption.

I need to thank a lot of people, including my staff-Christina, Marques, Annie, Angelo, and Leah for the unwavering support and forced viewings of Bright Star in the office. I need to thank my board for supporting this show to the extent that three of them are involved with the production (Eileen Kuo, Julie Scarpace, and Paul Scott).  I need to thank my parents Larry and Linda, who somehow, without my knowledge, embedded a love of bluegrass music into soul.  I need to thank the entire cast and crew for wanting to do live theatre again.  If you are director in town, you should absoultely use these wonderful artists whenever you have the opportunity.

A final thanks to the ones at home-Rachael, Jude, Aria, Ezra for truly being the ones to allow me to make this production happen.

This process has made me fall in love with theatre all over again.  I'm surrounded by talented and hardworking artists night after night, and I am so excited for all of you to enjoy that same experience this evening.

Enjoy the show!

-B