Bright Star – Rodenbaugh Theatre at Willow Bend Center of the Arts

Bright Star is the story of one woman at two different points in her life: the first, when she is a wild young thing growing up barefoot and carefree in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina; the second, when she is a well-to-do magazine editor in Asheville, 22 years later. Her story is inevitably woven with that of an idealistic young man named Billy, with whom she shares a mysterious connection. As a young teen in Zebulon, North Carolina, Alice Murphy is hopelessly in love with small town heartthrob Jimmy Ray, the mayor’s son. Although their love was pure, it falls victim to the interference of ambitious parents, and their infant son is whisked away before their happy ending could ever begin. More than two decades later, Alice is the successful editor of The Asheville Southern Journal, and meets a promising young writer named Billy. Eventually they realize that they share a hometown, and when Alice sees the handmade sweater she knitted for her baby 20 years before in his personal belongings, she realizes that he is the son she lost so long ago. Their happiness is compounded at the end of the story with a Shakespeare-esque double wedding.