How far would you go to uncover the truth about your past? With music composed by Grammy, Emmy, and Academy Award winner Steve Martin and Grammy winning artist Edie Brickell, Tony nominated Best Musical Bright Star demonstrates how one secret can change the course of your story. Taking inspiration from the true story of the “Iron Mountain Baby” in 1902,the collaboration between Martin’s book and Brickell’s lyrics brings audiences back to North Carolina at the end of World War II with flashbacks to 1923.

When Alice Murphy, the strong-willed editor for the Asheville Southern Journal, hires the ambitious, yet naive, young Billy Cane, she develops a strange liking to the soldier and his writings. This unexpected connection prompts flashbacks to 1923 and events in Alice’s young,carefree life in Zebulon that she has struggled to completely understand. In her desperate search for answers, she uncovers a truth that will change both of their lives. Her story of love,heartbreak, and hope takes audiences on an engaging journey of the human spirit and perseverance.

“Love can often be expressed in a way that makes you cringe. You feel like it’s corny somehow. We hoped that we could express it in a way that would inspire authentic feelings.”
- Edie Brickell

On August 14, 1902, the original Iron Mountain Baby, William Moses Gould Helms, was found at a river’s edge off of Southeast Missouri train tracks at 5 days old in a suitcase filled with clothes and diapers, all embroidered with the letter “B.” A few days later, local minister, John Barton, composed the song “Iron Mountain Baby,” and the story spread across the country. People flocked to the Helms' home, and many women claimed to be his mother but could never show any proof. William and Sarah Helms cared for the boy as their own until he moved and became a newspaper editor in Fair Grove, Missouri. Martin and Brickell wrote their own version of the song titled “Sarah Jane and the Iron Mountain Baby,” which inspired them to write Bright Star.

“You have a baby discovered in a suitcase — it needs a mother and a father. There needs a reason for that baby to have been thrown. You just start moving backwards, and the characters step up to you and say, ‘Yeah, you need me.’”
- Steve Martin

Bright Star was nominated for 5 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score, and the 2016 winner of both the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Musical. The Appalachian Bluegrass score showcases the talent of Martin and Brickell’s unique partnership that spans beyond the Broadway stage. Two songs from their first album Love Has Come For You (2013), When You Get to Asheville and Sun’s Gonna Shine, were modified to be included in the musical with others from their album, So Familiar.