Spotlight on Learning a Pioneer Theatre Company Classroom Companion
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Spotlight on Learning a Pioneer Theatre Company Classroom Companion Pioneer Theatre Company’s Student Matinee Program is made possible through the support of Salt Lake January 12 - 27, 2018 County’s Zoo, Arts and Music, book & story by: Music, lyrics & story by: Directed by: Parks Program, Salt Lake City Arts Council/ STEVE EDIE WALTER Arts Learning Program, The Simmons MARTIN BRICKELL BOBBIE Family Foundation, The Meldrum Foundation Endowment Fund and Notes on the Play R. Harold Burton PTC Artistic Director Karen Azenberg discusses adding Bright Star to the 2018-2019 Foundation. season. Since arriving at Pioneer Theatre Company, I’ve said that I wanted to bring the best shows available to our stage. So I keep a “list”—shows that I’ve seen in New York that I feel will particularly appeal to our audience. I know our audience likes Spotlight on Learning is provided to see things they can’t see at other theatres around the city, and I’m often asked to students through a grant about shows that simply aren’t being licensed to regional theatres. Hamilton, for instance; or Wicked; or The Lion King, to name a few. provided by the George Q. Morris Foundation Two years ago, I added Bright Star to the “list.” I loved the show. It was beauti- ful to look at, and listen to, and I felt it would resonate with this community. But when would it be available? Certainly, with its pedigree (Steve Martin and Edie Brickell!), it would tour before the rights would be available to us. And it is tour- Approx. running time: ing—but with the help of two very old friends, Broadway producer Joey Parnes and Center Theatre Group Producing Director Doug Baker. 2 hours and 20 minutes, which includes one fifteen-minute intermission. So Pioneer Theatre has joined in a unique partnership with the original Broadway production and the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles to be able to present this Student Talk-Back: musical to you now. We’re the third city, after Broadway, to host Bright Star with There will be a Student Talk-Back the incomparable Carmen Cusack reprising her Tony-nominated Broadway role. directly after the performance. My thanks to Joey, Doug and everyone associated with Bright Star. —Karen Azenberg, Artistic Director The Challenge of Creating an Original Book Musical The original book musical is a far riskier endeavor To hear Steve Martin and Edie Brickell tell it, than the other popular route for work with material by developing Bright Star has been sheer pleasure and a stars, the jukebox musical, in which the songbooks of thoroughgoing education. He wrote the book, she the big-name entertainers are replicated on the stage, with lyrics and both composed the bluegrass-influenced some bits of biography tossed in between the hit songs. music. “You’re never smart enough or see all the This practice has paid off hugely on Broadway with the complications, the impact of scenes,” Martin said in music of the Four Seasons (Jersey Boys), Carole King a phone interview with Brickell. “You really have to (Beautiful) and most recently, Gloria Estefan (On Your learn things for the first time, every time.” Feet!). “I always knew it was going to be very hard,” said So give credit to the stars who take the more dangerous Martin, who’s well known as a banjo player and less leap into the book musical, a form that even for a genius well known as a dramatist, most notably, of the off- like Stephen Sondheim requires more than a maiden Broadway play Picasso at the Lapin Agile (produced show to master; his early attempt at a commercial at PTC in 1999). musical, Saturday Night, never made it to Broadway. “One thing you keep learning is how humor works. And sometimes, the participation of a celebrity does I have a deep belief that a line is going to get a big reap major benefits: Witness the Tony Award bestowed laugh, and when I’m doing a line onstage, I have a upon Cyndi Lauper in 2013 for the score of the hit stage pretty good idea it is going to work. But here, the lines version of Kinky Boots. (Elton John is the rare star to I was pretty confident would get a laugh just got a nice write the music for one vehicle, the movie-to-stage smile. Comedy is very, very delicate.” musical The Lion King, and then come back again, Excerpt: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/ winning a Tony with Tim Rice for his score for the for-steve-martin-and-edie-brickell-musical-theater-isnt-so-wild-and- 2000 Aida. Alas, he also wrote the music for the 2006 crazy/2015/11/26/0cb298e6-9081-11e5-acff-673ae92ddd2b_story.html?utm_ vampire musical bomb Lestat.) term=.cfa50d58315e The cast of Bright Star. 2 Pioneer Theatre Company Steve Martin Edie Brickell STEVE MARTIN (Music, Book and Original Story) is one of the most well-known and pervasive talents in entertainment and one of the most diversified performers in the industry today, a successful author, playwright, producer, actor, screenwriter and comedian for more than three decades. His work has earned him an Academy Award®, five Grammy Awards® (two for comedy, three for music), the Mark Twain Award and the Kennedy Center Honor. Martin’s films are widely popular successes, such as The Jerk (1979, also screenplay), Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), Roxanne (1987, also screenplay), Parenthood (1989), L.A. Story (1991, also screenplay), Father of the Bride (1991) and Bowfinger (1999, also screenplay). As an author, Martin’s work includes the plays Picasso at the Lapin Agile (PTC patrons may remember it being Steve Martin and Edie Brickell on stage in 1999) and The Underpants, the best-selling novella, Shopgirl and his memoir, Born Standing Up. THE COLLABORATION Steve Martin is also an accomplished Grammy Award- winning, boundary-pushing bluegrass banjoist and In 2013, Martin and Brickell released “Love Has Come composer. For You,” a unique collaboration for the two. “Love Has Come For You” won a Grammy for Best American EDIE BRICKELL (Music, Lyrics and Original Story) Roots Song for the title track. Inspired by the true life was invited to sing one night in 1985 with friends tale of the Iron Mountain Baby, the album was the from her high school in a local folk rock group, New beginning of the creation of Bright Star, which opened Bohemians. She join the band as lead singer. After on Broadway in March 2016 and received five Tony the band was signed to a recording contract, the label Award nominations and seven Drama Desk Award changed the group’s name to Edie Brickell & New nominations, winning for Outstanding Music. Bohemians. Bright Star also won Outstanding New Broadway Their 1988 debut album, “Shooting Rubberbands at the Musical and Outstanding New Score at the Outer Critics Stars,” went multi-platinum, becoming a critical and Circle Awards. commercial success, including the single “What I Am.” Martin and Brickell’s second album together, “So Brickell had a role as a folk singer in the 1989 film Familiar,” was released on Rounder Records and Born on the Fourth of July. Her version of Bob Dylan’s featured 12 remarkable songs that brought the acclaimed “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” is featured on the film’s duo’s musical collaboration into fresh creative territory. soundtrack. She also sang a cover version of Lou Reed’s Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers released “Walk on the Wild Side” in the 1990 filmFlashback . their newest collaboration, “The Long-Awaited Album,” on Rounder Records on September 22, 2017. Pioneer Theatre Company 3 Characters Alice Murphy is the wild young girl growing up in Billy Cane, fresh from WWII, returns home a hero the remote Blue Ridge Mountains, and also, 20 years and ready to make his mark on the world. He is old later, the successful woman running The Asheville friends with Margo, whom he does not realize carries Southern Journal with a firm hand and a dry wit. As a romantic feelings for him. He moves to Asheville to young girl, she is in love with Jimmy Ray, the “hand- try his hand at writing and finds some success when he somest boy in town.” Their love affair is passionate sells his first story to Alice for ten dollars. but sadly short-lived, due to the interference of their Daddy Cane is Billy’s father, In his first scene, he parents. sorrowfully informs Billy that his mother passed away Daddy Murphy and Mama Murphy are Alice’s par- while he was at war. Daddy Cane is a gentle, sweet ents. When Alice returns home late from a date with man, who loves Billy very much. He is not Billy’s bi- Jimmy Ray Dobbs, they fear for Alice’s future. Daddy ological father, but instead rescued him as a baby and Murphy despairs of not having raised Alice properly, raised him as his own. and worries that she will get into trouble. Margo Crawford is the childhood friend of Billy Jimmy Ray Dobbs is the flirtatious and handsome Cane. When he returns from the war, she is overjoyed local heartthrob. He and Alice have a passionate love to see him but her hopes of a romantic reunion are affair that ends in tragedy. Jimmy has a complicated quickly dashed when she learns of his plans to move relationship with his father, who is also the mayor. to Asheville. Mayor Josiah Dobbs from the beginning, disapproves Lucy Grant and Daryl Ames work for Alice in 1945 of Alice Murphy and her wild ways, and (rightly) Asheville at The Asheville Southern Journal.