Morristown-Beard School Teacher Joins "Bright Star" Tour

This fall, Morristown-Beard School Performing Arts faculty member David Gold is taking a leave of absence from his teaching duties to play viola and violin in a national tour of Bright Star, a bluegrass-infused musical written and composed by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell.

“It’s a real honor to be asked. I’ve played on Broadway for many years, but I’ve never been given this kind of opportunity,” said Gold, who began rehearsals for the show in Los Angeles this week. Bright Star will open at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles on October 11th before moving to San Francisco on November 28th.

“One of the perks for me is that I absolutely love the music and I love the show. It’s funny, it’s heartwarming, and it’s bittersweet,” said Gold, who was one of two substitute musicians for Bright Star during its Broadway run. “A couple of friends from the MBS faculty saw me in the show in New York and they liked it so much they bought the soundtrack the next day.”

The musical tells a sweeping tale of love and redemption set against a rich backdrop of the American South in the 1920s and 40s. Propelled by an ensemble of onstage musicians and dancers, Bright Star was hailed as “refreshingly genuine” and “daringly hopeful” and was called “Broadway’s most beautiful show” by WABC. It received five 2016 Tony Award nominations including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book, Best Lead Actress in a Musical, and Best Orchestrations.

Gold, who will return to Morristown-Beard School for the second semester of the year, has had quite a distinguished and varied background as a musician. He has performed with musical acts on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Today Show, The View, Saturday Night Live and Sesame Street. He has recorded with Tony Bennett, Norah Jones, David Byrne, and Sheryl Crow; performed with Hall & Oates, Lou Reed, Johnny Mathis, Cassandra Wilson, and Burt Bacharach; and subbed on many Broadway shows, including Wicked, Miss Saigon, Sunset Boulevard, Fiddler on the Roof, Les Miz, On the Town, An American in Paris, Finding Neverland, South Pacific, Gypsy, Spamalot, Into the Woods, Kiss Me Kate, The Lion King…and, of course, Bright Star.