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music, lyrics & book by Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, directed by Jacob Wolstencroft

David & Hannah Mirvish & Garner Theatre Productions, CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge Street, Toronto

October 8-November 2, 2025

Billy: “You never know what life will bring. / Only what you bring to life”

The musical Bright Star was not a success when it premiered on Broadway in 2016. Though written by famed comedian Steve Martin and singer-songwriter Edie Brickell, the show played only 109 performances. Seeing the show now in the production by Garner Theatre Productions presented by David and Hannah, it’s clear that Bright Star is very unlike a Boardway musical. Its overall tone is not brash, loud and outgoing but gentle, reflective and melancholy. The sequence of songs written in bluegrass style is vibrant and varied from beginning to end. What the show lacks is strong, forward momentum, a problem inherent in how the story is presented. Nevertheless, the show is such a fine showcase of Canadian talent that the cast’s exuberant performances and Martin and Brickell’s music can be enjoyed for their own sake.

The musical’s story begins in 1946 with literary editor Alice Murphy telling us we are about to hear her own story rather than any of the ones she edits. Her tale begins in 1945 with young Billy Cane returning home to the small town of Hayes Creek, North Carolina, having served in World War II. His father is overjoyed to see him but has to tell him that his mother died while he was away. A young woman, Margo, is still running a bookshop in town, but Billy is too shy to let her know he has feelings for her.

Billy wants to be a writer and has already written a packet of stories. He goes to Asheville to submit them to a literary journal for consideration. Billy’s lie that he has a letter of recommendation from renowned Asheville-born author Thomas Wolfe intrigues rather than puts off Alice, the journal’s editor.

When Alice turns down the offer to attend a local dance with two of her assistants, they wonder if her life has always been as antisocial as it is now. Her reply that she once led a much different life triggers a flashback to 1923 when she lived in Zebulon, North Carolina. Then she and the Mayor’s son Jimmy Ray fell in love. The Mayor, however, is keen on his son marrying into a wealthy family and forbids Jimmy Ray to see Alice.

From this point on the story flips between the 1940s and 1923, focussing in the later period on Billy and in the earlier period on Alice. The Alice plot dominates and unfolds in an all too predictable fashion reaching a melodramatic pitch by the end of Act 1. The Billy plot centres on Billy’s getting to know Alice better, even showing her around Hayes Creek where all his stories are set.

While one can understand why Martin and Brickell tell their story this way, their method has three inherent difficulties. First, by the end of Act 1 we have no idea why the scenes with Billy are in the play since the focus seems to have shifted to Alice, whose song “If You Knew My Story” began the musical. Second, recurrence to the Billy plot, especially in Act 2, seems to hold up the action and prevent the musical from building up any forward momentum. Third, once we realize what the point of the Billy plot is, it is far too late in Act 2 and is so reliant on coincidence that it leads to an ending more in line with a farce like The Importance of Being Earnest than the serious naturalist drama the musical has been. The irony here is that the ending, incredible as it may seem, is actually inspired by a real event that occurred in Missouri in 1902.

One might think that these difficulties with the musical’s book would sink the whole musical, but, strangely enough, they don’t. The reason is that Martin and Brickell have written an unbroken string of wonderfully effective songs to carry us through the vagaries of the story. The lyrics are straightforward and the melodies are catchy but not complex, thus relating the music to folksong. The situation with Bright Star is rather like that of Chess (1986) by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, a musical people continue to adore because of its music and in spite of its awkward book.

Jacob Wolstencroft’s direction helps immensely in emphasizing the music as the show’s greatest virtue. Wolstencroft, as he did in 2022 for a workshop production of Bright Star, has recruited a strong ensemble of actor-musicians as performers. The cast thus doubles as the orchestra, its 12 members playing over 20 instruments in the course of the action. The original production had an onstage orchestra of nine musicians, but they were kept separate from the performers.

Merging the orchestra with the singers has two major consequences. First, it automatically serves as an alienation device that forces us to see the work as piece of theatre. This immediately undercuts the story’s naturalism. Second, as in the musicals Once (2011) and Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (2012), which already demand actor-musicians, we feel that an entire community is telling us a story that is important to them all, whether it is the regulars of an Irish pub or a cross-section of Russian society. This makes us view the story from the point of view of everyone affected rather than only from the point of view of the central characters.

Garner Theatre Productions has assembled a top-notch cast. Alice is played by Kaylee Harwood. On previous occasions when I have seen Harwood, as in Kiss Me, Kate for Drayton or Camelot for Stratford, she has sung with a lovely operetta-like soprano. In Bright Star, she sings with a head voice more suited to bluegrass and proves to be just as effective. Harwood is especially good at distinguishing Alice as a rebellious teenager of 1923 from Alice the staid editor.

Audiences will know George Krissa from his star-making turn as the roguish Anatole in The Great Comet. Krissa still emanates the same natural charisma as Jimmy Ray, but here as a sincere, passionate young man. Both Harwood and Krissa convincingly guide their characters from the flirtatiousness of young love in “Whoa, Mama” to deep despair later in “I Had A Vision”.

Nick Dolan’s light tenor is a fine vehicle for Billy, who sings the show’s upbeat title song about the heady future he sees before him. Dolan, who plays six instruments, makes Billy’s boundless optimism and his shyness around Margo feel perfectly natural. Yunike Soedarmasto brings out all the humour in Margo, who has to fend off awkward advances from a boy she does care for while waiting for Billy to finally declare his interest in her. Soedarmasto reveals such a strong, full singing voice in “Asheville” one wishes the writers had given the character more than one song.

Brendan Wall has been part of the ensemble of numerous shows at Soulpepper as well as in The Great Comet. It is great at last to see him in a major role as Mayor Dobbs, Jimmy Ray’s class-conscious father, and to have a solo number like “A Man’s Gotta Do”, whose complex emotions he captures so powerfully. While his main instrument is the bass, he’s a dab hand at five other instruments as well.

As Alice’s father, Daddy Murphy, Scott Carmichael, another multi-instrumentalist, projects an aura of religious conservatism from his first entrance. In contrast to Mayor Dobbs and Daddy Murphy, Billy’s father, Daddy Cane exudes warmth and kindness, especially as played by Beau Dixon.

While the solo numbers and duets are all well-conceived as expressions of particular dramatic moments, it is the frequent choral passages, with all singers playing their instruments, that make the music of Bright Starsoar. Only one number is strictly a dance interlude, but choreographer Lisa Goebel has cleverly managed to work dance into all the numbers backed by a chorus. Even when a couple is dancing, Goebel has cleverly managed to make the fact that both are playing instruments seem like part of the fun.

Indeed, the great pleasure we have in the show’s music-making soundly outweighs whatever deficiencies there may be in the musical’s storytelling. Mirvish has wisely chosen their smallest venue, the CAA Theatre, as the venue for Bright Star, where the show’s music and delicate sentiments will have more impact than they would in a larger space. Bluegrass is an unusual genre for a musical, but it is exactly right for the Southern setting of Bright Star. You will exit with the homey sounds of the show, especially the catchy title tune, still ringing in your ears. Lovers of musicals won’t want to miss it.

Christopher Hoile

Photo: Kaylee Harwood as Alice and George Krissa as Jimmy Ray, © 2025 Wade Muir; Kaylee Harwood as Alice with the ensemble; Nick Dolan as Billy and Yunike Soedarmasto as Margo, © 2025 Dahlia Katz.

For tickets visit: www.mirvish.com.