STEVE MARTIN and EDIE BRICKELL’s “BRIGHT STAR” cast album hits 5 BILLBOARD CHARTS
The original cast recording of Bright Star, the new musical from Grammy® and Emmy® Award winner Steve Martin and Grammy®-winning singer-songwriter Edie Brickell – has hit five different Billboard charts in the first week of wide release. The cast album from Ghostlight Records placed at #1 on the Top Current Blue Grass Albums chart, #2 on theTop Broadway chart, #5 on the Americana/Folk Albums chart, as well as hitting the Top 100 on the Billboard Top Albums chart and Top 200 on the Overall Digital Albums chart. Bright Star is nominated for five 2016 Tony Awards including “Best Musical” and “Best Original Score,” and it won the Drama Desk Award for “Outstanding Music” and the Outer Critics Circle Award for “Outstanding New Broadway Musical.” The album is produced by the legendary, multi-Grammy Award-winning producer, manager, and musician Peter Asher. The booklet features full lyrics, show photos, liner notes from Martin, Brickell and Asher, in addition to a synopsis and essay by Bill Rosenfield. To order the album, please visit http://www.sh-k-boom.com/bright-star-original-broadway-cast-recording.
A special music video of the song “If You Knew My Story” starring the show’s Tony Award®-nominated leading lady Carmen Cusack and the show’s cast – featuring exclusive video footage from the recording session – is available on YouTube HERE.
When Bright Star opened on Broadway earlier this season, Entertainment Weekly raved “it’s Martin and Brickell’s music that’s the brightest star” and praised the musical’s “stirring ballads and toe-tapping numbers.” The Washington Post called the show “an Appalachian fairy tale, embroidered by a bluegrass score that chirps with down-home sweetness.” According to Newsday, “the score builds with rhythmic surprises, melodic complexity and the deep satisfaction of humming and plucking strings.
Bright Star features direction by Tony Award® winner Walter Bobbie and choreography by Josh Rhodes. The show is currently running at Broadway’s Cort Theatre (138 West 48th Street).
Carmen Cusack makes her Broadway debut as Alice, a role she originated in Bright Star’s world premiere production in San Diego, and is joined by co-stars Paul Alexander Nolan, Tony Award®nominee Michael Mulheren, A.J. Shively, Hannah Elless, Tony Award® nominee Stephen Bogardus, three-time Tony Award® nominee Dee Hoty, Stephen Lee Anderson, Emily Padgett, Tony Award® nominee Jeff Blumenkrantz, along with 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.
Inspired by a real event, this “unabashedly romantic” (The New York Times) original musical tells a sweeping tale of love and redemption set against the rich backdrop of the American South in the 1920s and ‘40s. When literary editor Alice Murphy meets a young soldier just home from World War II, he awakens her longing for the child she once lost. Haunted by their unique connection, Alice sets out on a journey to understand her past — and what she finds has the power to transform both of their lives.
The design team for Bright Star includes Tony and Emmy Award® winner Eugene Lee (Scenic Design), Tony Award® winner Jane Greenwood (Costume Design), Tony Award® nominee Japhy Weideman (Lighting Design), Tony Award® nominee Nevin Steinberg (Sound Design), Tom Watson (Hair and Wig Design), Grammy Award® winner Peter Asher (Music Supervision), Rob Berman (Musical Direction and Vocal Arrangements), August Eriksmoen (Orchestrations), and Howie Cherpakov (Casting)
Bright Star is produced on Broadway by Joey Parnes, Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Zebulon LLC, Jay Alix & Una Jackman, Len Blavatnik, James L. Nederlander, Carson & Joseph Gleberman, Balboa Park Productions, The Shubert Organization, Jamie deRoy/Catherine Adler/Cricket Jiranek, in association with Rodger Hess, A.C. Orange International, Broadway Across America, Sally Jacobs & Warren Baker, Diana DiMenna, Exeter Capital, Agnes Gund, True Love Productions, and The Old Globe.
Tickets for Bright Star ($45 – $145) are available by visiting the Cort Theatre box office Monday – Saturday, 10am – 8pm; online at Telecharge.com, or by calling 800-447-7400. For groups of 10 or more, call 1-800-BROADWAY, ext. 2.
The performance schedule for Bright Star is as follows: Tuesdays at 7pm, Wednesdays at 2pm and 8pm, Thursdays at 7pm, Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm.
A workshop production of Bright Star was presented by New York Stage and Film & Vassar at the Powerhouse Theater in the summer of 2013, and the show had its World Premiere at The Old Globe in San Diego, CA (Barry Edelstein, Artistic Director; Michael G. Murphy, Managing Director) on September 28, 2014
“BRIGHT STAR” TRACK LIST
1) If You Knew My Story
2) She’s Gone
3) Bright Star
4) Way Back In The Day
5) Whoa, Mama
6) Firmer Hand / Do Right
7) A Man’s Gotta Do
8) Asheville
9) What Could Be Better
10) I Can’t Wait
11) Please, Don’t Take Him
12) A Man’s Gotta Do (Reprise)
13) Entr’acte
14) Sun Is Gonna Shine
15) Heartbreaker
16) Another Round
17) I Had A Vision
18) Always Will
19) So Familiar
20) At Long Last
21) Finale
22) Bright Star (Reprise)
23) Sun Is Gonna Shine (Single Version) [Bonus Track]
ABOUT SH-K-BOOM & GHOSTLIGHT RECORDS
Sh-K-Boom with its imprint Ghostlight Records has become the leading independent force in Original Broadway Cast Recordings – building a library of over 150 records in the last 16 years, featuring some of the most successful Broadway musicals and solo albums by Broadway’s brightest stars. Founded by Grammy Award winner Kurt Deutsch, Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight has won three Grammy Awards (for The Book of Mormon, In the Heights and Beautiful – The Carole King Musical) and is a frequent nominee, most recently for the OBCR of the 2015 “Best Musical” Tony Award nominee Something Rotten! Other notable recent releases include the 2016 “Best Musical” Tony Award nominee Bright Star by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, the 2014 “Best Musical” Tony Award winner A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, the 2014 “Best Score” Tony Award winner The Bridges of Madison County, Disney’s Newsies, Pippin and Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, adding to a catalogue that includes OBCRs of Next to Normal, Hair, Legally Blonde, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Everyday Rapture, Passing Strange, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Drowsy Chaperone and many more Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. The label has also released solo albums from some of Broadway’s biggest names: Patti LuPone, Sherie Rene Scott, Adam Pascal, Sutton Foster, Kelli O’Hara, Alice Ripley, Christine Ebersole, Melissa Errico and Ben Vereen. The label continues to support the new generation of musical theatre composers with their extensive relationships with Michael John LaChiusa (First Daughter Suite, Giant, See What I Wanna See, Little Fish) and Michael Friedman (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Fortress of Solitude), as well as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tom Kitt, Pasek & Paul, Joe Iconis, Ryan Scott Oliver, Shaina Taub, Dave Malloy, Kerrigan & Lowdermilk and Adam Gwon. The label recently created a new joint publishing venture with Razor & Tie to represent songwriters that fuse theatrical and pop music. Sh-K-Boom Entertainment is a producer of the acclaimed film version of The Last Five Years, written and directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan. www.sh-k-boom.com