Bright Star – Our Vision

Hello TCHA patrons and participants,

As many of you are aware, we just recently announced our fall musical, Bright Star. This is a fairly new musical so we know many will not be familiar with the storyline or script.

Bright Star is set in both the 1920’s and 1940’s and has some heavy themes: an unwed pregnancy and its effects, and one scene where drinking is portrayed. There is no sexual content in the script, and while the script does include a kiss, we will not be having our students do this. The story portrays the consequences of sexual sin as it results in broken relationships and guilt. It is also beautifully redemptive in a way that we desire to highlight in the performance of it.

TCHA wants to honor the Lord and bring glory to Him in all we do, and we believe, having prayed and discussed this decision at length, we will be able to do this in a unique way through Bright Star. Using it’s all too familiar themes for today’s teens as a jumping off point, we can take time in rehearsals to talk through these issues from a Biblical perspective so that these teens can not only portray their character with excellence but also deepen their understanding of what a godly walk with the Lord looks like. We want them to come to a fuller realization of His amazing grace and the way He weaves His story into our mistakes as believers. As Christians, we are not only recipients of God’s grace but also His grace-bearers to those who need it most. Our musical director, Michaela Leist, has a background in youth ministry and desires to couple the direction of each production with ministry and discipleship.

As one of the difficult themes of the musical is a baby born out of wedlock, a baby believed by his parents to have been lost to them forever, and the harsh treatment endured by this young couple by an overbearing father, we also have discussed partnering with Amnion, a local Christian pregnancy center. They could possibly have a table in the lobby at the performances or maybe even have a testimony of someone helped by Amnion’s services incorporated in some way.

Bright Star is a different type of musical than TCHA has done in the past, although akin to Oliver in that the themes are often heavy. Efforts will be made by the directing team to be communicative about possible uncomfortable situations (i.e. we in no way condone drinking alcohol as a way to cope with stress or to soothe other difficult feelings). Some lines may be changed, and some scenes tweaked. We are following the high school edition script, which we have read through several times in order to catch any areas that we want to rework a bit. We want our students to feel very free to approach and speak with a director if they are feeling uncomfortable about something in the script!

We understand that parents may make the decision for their teen not to participate in this musical, and that is completely your decision of course! We hope you’ll consider joining us in a future production. But we did want you to know that so much thought and prayer has gone into this, and although some tough stuff is portrayed in Bright Star, we believe that it has the potential to really speak redemption to the community. Our desire is that this message of redemption will be outlined clearly for them, pointing them to the One who has redeemed us all.

The TCHA Board and Musical Committee