The post-Tony Awards fallout has claimed “Bright Star,” the charming and winsome bluegrass musical that marked the Broadway debuts of star Carmen Cusack and the writing team of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. Directed by Walter Bobbie, “Bright Star will close on June 26 after playing 30 previews and 109 regular performances.The show, a mid-20th century Southern Gothic tale of star-crossed romance, would have been a hard sell in any season given its lack of flash and spectacle. But with “Hamilton” sucking up all the oxygen in the room — it recently grossed over $2 million per week — “Bright Star” was gasping for air from the time it opened at the intimate Cort Theatre on March 24.In a statement, lead producer Joey Parnes said, “So much of “Bright Star”’s beauty comes from the fact that it is utterly free of irony. In these cynical times, this quality proved to be totally refreshing…I am so proud of this show, and I am glad that Steve, Edie and Walter, and this incredible company, brought its unique spirit to our city, if only for a while.”According to the New York Post, Martin, Brickell, and her husband Paul Simon, poured in more than $1 million of their own money in an attempt to cover losses as the show limped toward the Tony Awards ceremony on June 12. Martin even occasionally appeared in the on-stage band at the Cort playing a banjo. (A few numbers from the show stemmed from Martin and Brickell’s previous collaboration on two albums, including “Love Has Come For You,” the title track of which won them a Grammy Award for Best American Roots Song.)“Bright Star” was nominated for five Tony awards, including best musical, and while it went home empty-handed the hope was that the number presented on the telecast would boost sales. Unfortunately, that did not materialize. Nonetheless, “Bright Star” ran long enough so that a road company and/or regional productions should keep it alive. It will also live on in its original cast album, available from Ghostlight Records.Despite the closings of “Bright Star,” “Disaster!” and “American Psycho,” this season has been an especially healthy one for many of the other new musicals and revivals. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “School of Rock” and Sara Bareilles’s “Waitress” have both grossed over $1 million per week, while “Shuffle Along” and “On Your Feet!” are not far behind. In the revival category, “She Loves Me” and “The Color Purple” have come close to selling out. “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Broadway Theatre is doing middling business, but the production’s number on the Tony Awards was said to be one of the most effective of the night.The increasing numbers of pop music composers coming to Broadway have been met with mixed success. Paul Simon’s “Capeman” was a widely publicized failure, as was Sting’s boldly imaginative “The Last Ship.” But in the hit column are shows crafted from existing hit catalogues: Carole King’s “Beautiful,” “Motown, the Musical,” and, of course, the long-running “Jersey Boys,” which tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. While it is more exceptional for pop songwriters to assay original musicals, such as “Waitress” and Duncan Sheik’s “Spring Awakening” and “American Psycho,” you can expect many more chart-topping artists to try their hand on Broadway.
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