[6] Directed by Walter Bobbie, the cast featured Carmen Cusack as Alice Murphy, Paul Alexander Nolan as Jimmy Ray Dobbs, A.J.
Shively as Billy Cane, Hannah Elless as Margo Crawford, Emily Padgett as Lucy Grant, Jeff Blumenkrantz as Daryl Ames, Michael Mulheren as Mayor Dobbs, Stephen Bogardus as Billy's father, Dee Hoty as Alice's mother, and Stephen Lee Anderson as Alice's father.
[13][14] Following the completion of the national tour, Musical Theatre West in Long Beach, California, bought the rights along with the original sets and costumes.
One year earlier, in the town of Hayes Creek, serviceman and aspiring writer Billy Cane returns home after serving in World War II.
Flashing back to 1923, a sixteen-year-old Alice flirts with Jimmy Ray Dobbs in her hometown of Zebulon, North Carolina ("Whoa, Mama").
("Firmer Hand/Do Right") Meanwhile, Jimmy Ray returns home only to be lectured by his father, Mayor Josiah Dobbs, on what the future holds for him ("A Man's Gotta Do").
In 1945, upon receiving encouragement from Alice in the form of a ten dollar check, Billy decides to settle down in Asheville and dedicate his time to writing.
Jimmy Ray proposes after learning of her pregnancy, but she is persuaded by Doctor Norquist and Mayor Dobbs to wait to get married in favor of staying in a remote cabin until giving birth.
She divides her time in isolation between knitting a sweater for the baby and talking about their child with Jimmy Ray when he visits ("I Can't Wait").
When Mayor Dobbs confesses what happened to the baby, Jimmy Ray decides to stay with his father after realizing he can't possibly tell Alice the truth ("Heartbreaker").
The complicated plot, divided between two love stories that turn out to have an unusual connection, threatens to get a little too diffuse and unravel like a ball of yarn rolling off a knitter's lap.
But the songs — yearning ballads and square-dance romps rich with fiddle, piano and banjo, beautifully played by a nine-person band — provide a buoyancy that keeps the momentum from stalling.
Guileless Billy seems untouched by wartime service, too callow to craft greeting cards let alone the 'sweeping tale of pain and redemption' Alice unaccountably expects of him", and that the show could benefit with higher stakes in its drama.
[19] Kai Elijah Hamilton of Mountain Xpress, reviewing a regional production of Bright Star, wrote: "While Martin and singer-songwriter Brickell's passion is evident, this is not the most authentic representation of life in North Carolina.
For instance, Elysa Gardner, in her review in USA Today, wrote: "...Martin, a master ironist, captures some of that old-school spirit with a book that's as forthright as it is smart, funny and charming....Martin and Brickell refuse to condescend to their own characters, from the small-townspeople Billy grows up with to the wry, knowing employees at Alice's highly regarded journal in the city of Asheville....The tone in which that story is delivered can also wobble a bit, especially later on, when what seems destined to be a majestic, Hammerstein-esque resolution is mitigated by zany musical-comedy flourishes.
[23] In its review of the recording, NPR said that the "interlocking narrative can't help but lose some of its detail", but that "Bright Star's best moments shine, well, brightly....the net result is a set of songs in which lavish stage settings and broad flourishes can't obscure the simple warmth and lovely instrumentation at their core.