Theater News

Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's Bright Star Will Go on Tour

The award-winning Broadway musical is headed to a city near you.

Carmen Cusack and Paul Alexander Nolan performed at Town Hall in a Bright Star reunion concert.
Carmen Cusack and Paul Alexander Nolan in Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's Bright Star.
(© Joan Marcus)

Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's Tony-nominated musical Bright Star will head on tour during the 2017-18 season, producer Joey Parnes has announced. Dates, casting, venues, and additional information will be revealed in the coming months.

With direction by Walter Bobbie and choreography by Josh Rhodes, Bright Star is inspired by tunes from Brickell and Martin's Grammy-winning album, Love Has Come for You. The story follows a young soldier who is just home from World War II. With the editor of a Southern literary journal, he discovers a secret that changes their lives. The musical premiered at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre in 2014, played a pre-Broadway run in 2015 at the Kennedy Center, and ran at Broadway's Cort Theatre in 2016.

Bright Star is currently nominated for a 2017 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. The show won the 2016 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music as well as Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical and Best Score. It also received five 2016 Tony Awards nominations, including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book, Best Lead Actress in a Musical, and Best Orchestrations.

The Broadway company was lead by Carmen Cusack, Paul Alexander Nolan, Michael Mulheren, A.J. Shively, Hannah Elless, Stephen Bogardus, Dee Hoty, Stephen Lee Anderson, Emily Padgett, and Jeff Blumenkrantz, along with ensemble members Maddie Shea Baldwin, Allison Briner-Dardenne, Max Chernin, Patrick Cummings, Sandra DeNise, Richard Gatta, Lizzie Klemperer, Michael X. Martin, William Michals, Tony Roach, Sarah Jane Shanks, and William Youmans.