Cost to produce $10.5 million

Onstage Instead of going with a well-known star, the show’s creative team chose Carmen Cusack, who had been with the project from the start; she got great reviews and was nominated for a Tony Award for her Broadway debut performance as the editor, Alice Murphy.

Image Steve Martin and Edie Brickell Credit... Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Offstage The comedian and musician Steve Martin and the singer-songwriter Edie Brickell collaborated on the score. The show was directed by Walter Bobbie (a Tony winner for “Chicago”), and the lead producer was Joey Parnes, who had shepherded “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder” into an unlikely hit.

What were they thinking? The producers and creators were encouraged with what they saw at two pre-Broadway productions, a premiere at the Old Globe in San Diego in 2014, then a run in 2015 at the Kennedy Center in Washington; they believed that the cultural cachet of Mr. Martin and Ms. Brickell would attract audiences and that a combination of buzz and awards would broaden the appeal.

Critical response Mixed. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times praised the show as “gentle-spirited, not gaudy,” but Terry Teachout described it in The Wall Street Journal as “a really bad bluegrass-pop musical.” The show was nominated for five Tony Awards, including for best new musical, but won none.

Why it failed Although some were charmed, few were wowed, making it hard to build word of mouth. As an original musical, not adapted from a film or novel, and with a complex plot, it was hard to explain to ticket buyers. Some found the show’s denouement laughably predictable. The musical was nostalgic; it was often described as quiet, or small, which has worked for some recent musicals (“Once,” “Fun Home”), though not this year. As “Bright Star” struggled at the box office, Mr. Martin and Ms. Brickell, among others, lent the production more money to keep it running, and on about a dozen occasions Mr. Martin joined the band onstage for an instrumental entr’acte, but it was not enough to save the show.