REGIONAL- As the northbound No. 4 St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway train crossed the bridge over the Big River on Aug. 14, 1902, someone threw a newborn baby in a suitcase into the river. A farmer heard the infant’s cries and rescued him. Within the year, the tale was immortalized in the folk song, “The Ballad of the Iron Mountain Baby.”
More than a century later, comedian Steve Martin and songwriter Edie Brickell created the award-winning musical “Bright Star,” inspired by the true story of William Helms, the baby from the ballad.
“Bright Star” will open next Thursday at the Vermilion Fine Arts Theater at Minnesota North College. Produced by the Northern Lakes Arts Association, the musical will have a total of eight performances, closing on Sunday, June 30. The show is the second in a summer filled with five NLAA musical productions.
The musical
The complex and soap opera-like plot revolves around the character of Alice Murphy, a fiction editor who befriends a soldier recently returned from World War II. The soldier, Billy, is around the age her own son would have been.
Alice’s interactions with Billy send her on a journey of self-discovery into her past, when her father forced her to give up her baby born out of wedlock. In a parallel with the real-life Iron Mountain Baby, her father put the infant in a suitcase and threw it from a train into the local river.
The action of the musical takes place in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. In keeping with the southern setting, the score of the musical is ripe with blue grass, country, and southern folk melodies. Critical reviews agree that the strength of “Bright Star” is its foot-tapping musical score.
The musical premiered in San Diego in 2014. It opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 2015, and on Broadway in 2016. The show was nominated for numerous awards, including five Tony Awards and a Grammy. It won a Drama Desk Award in the Outstanding Music category, a Theatre World Award in the Outstanding Debut Performance category, and two Outer Critics Circle Awards in the Outstanding New Score and Outstanding New Broadway Musical categories.
Local production
The musical features a cast which is a mix of local and professional talent. Several of the faces in the show will be familiar to Ely’s theater fans, like that of Noah Warner who is returning to Ely after his performances in last year’s NLAA Broadway in the Boundary Waters summer season. Also on stage as part of the ensemble will be Ruby Wilton, who played Queen Elsa in the Ely Memorial High School production of “Disney’s Frozen, The Broadway Musical.”
“Bright Star” will open on Thursday, June 20, at 7 p.m. Other 7 p.m. shows will be on June 21, 22, 27, and 28. Matinees at 2 p.m. will be performed on June 23, 29, and 30.
Tickets are $25 for the public, $20 for NLAA members, $18 for students, and $10 for youths. The June 27 event is a “pay what you can” performance.