HOMETOWN ENTERTAINMENT: Steve Martin’s musical “Bright Star” opens this month at Mill Mountain Theatre

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - Expect plenty of banjo picking and guitar strumming if you catch Mill Mountain Theatre’s newest production, “Bright Star.”

For its director, who grew up in Christiansburg, the musical is a homecoming.

“It’s exciting to be back home once again and get a chance to see some family and friends and bring a great show that I love to southwest Virginia,” says “Bright Star” director Jim Moye.

“Bright Star” is set in the mountains of North Carolina. It was written and composed by the legendary Steve Martin and singer-songwriter Edie Brickell.

“I had the opportunity as an actor to work on the piece 10 years ago with Steve Martin, Edie Brickell, Walter Bobby, the original creative team, when they were developing the show,” says Moye.

“It’s an intimate story. It kind of revolves around Alice Murphy, who I play. We meet her in the 1940s right at the end of the second world war and then through flashbacks into the 1920s, you lean a little more about her life,” says actress Mamie Parris.

Parris says there are many family secrets. And over the course of the show, those secrets start to emerge.

“It’s a big sweeping story. It’s love and betrayal and hope and redemption in the end. But it’s set among the kind of people you would know in real life. Everybody is absolutely-- you see your grandma. You see your aunt” says Parris.

And in this show, the bluegrass music is also a character all on its own.

“They’ve created this incredible bluegrass score that ends up being uplifting and heartbreaking and just really rousing and really cool and unique,” says Parris.

“Bright Star” runs September 13 through October 1 on the Trinkle Mainstage at Mill Mountain Theatre. For more information, call 540-342-5740, or click here to buy tickets.

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