Weekend Showcase: Bunce Performing Arts Presents ‘Bright Star’

Maple Grove-based Bunce Performing Arts is bringing an energetic musical to the stage.

“It’s a really beautiful story, it’s got love but also heartbreak,” said actor Dylan Sauder, who plays Jimmy Ray Dobbs.

“Bright Star” was written and composed by actor/comedian Steve Martin and singer/songwriter Edie Brickell. It’s set in North Carolina in the 1920s and 1940s. The main protagonist is literary editor Alice Murphy, played by student Cecily Gaspar, whose story takes the audience on an emotional roller coaster of loss and redemption.

“It takes place in two different time periods, the 1920s she’s this young, spunky, fiery thing and then you see her in the future as an adult and see how she transforms through her experiences,” said Gaspar, who’s acting in her first Bunce production.

What really drives “Bright Star” is the blue grass music. It sets the scene and transports the audience to the rural South during the interwar period.

“The music is fantastic, very fun music, a lot of toe tapping and a lot of ear worms in this show,” said Greg Bunce, the show’s technical director.

Throughout “Bright Star,” many of the characters change and evolve and as they do their stories offer a reflection of life.

“You leave feeling good about life and feeling happy but you recognize throughout the show there were struggles but that’s a lot like life,” said Sauder.

All performances of “Bright Star” are at Maple Grove Middle School. The show opens Feb. 24.

Maple Grove

Arts Showcase