A New Musical About Bernadette of Lourdes

Frequent “Christopher Closeup” guest, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Sarah Hart, has co-written a new musical theater production called “Bernadette of Lourdes” that will debut at the Pope John Paul II High School Library in Hendersonville, Tennessee, on Thursday March 6, 2014, with a cast of both high school students and adults. It’s an introduction to a production that Hart hopes will be picked up and performed by schools and theaters across the country.

The play tells the story of St. Bernadette who, as a sickly child in 19th century France, experienced a series of visitations/apparitions from the Virgin Mary in Lourdes. Bernadette was encouraged by the Blessed Mother to pray for sinners, do penance, and eventually build a chapel at the site of the visitations, a grotto in Massabielle. At first, many of the townspeople, including local church leaders, thought Bernadette was crazy, but when Mary led the child to a small, hidden spring of underground water that hasn’t stopped flowing to this day, people started coming around. (Read the full story here.)

During my last interview with Sarah Hart, she talked about the long road she’s traveled to write and produce “Bernadette of Lourdes.” She said, “We have been working on this for 15 years, Brian Hull and I. We had a shared love for this story [even though] he’s not Catholic. He just is a very creative person who loves the story of Bernadette. He asked if I’d be interested in working on a musical about it, so we started. It has been through so many revisions and several readings here in Nashville. Finally, we Kickstarted it about a year ago, raised enough funds to do a soundtrack…[The play] has got a real Les Miz feel to it as well. There’s a lot of hope in it, and it’s an incredible story even if you’re not Catholic. It’s an amazing journey of faith, and begs the question, ‘what do you believe?’ So we’re really excited to get it out there.”

Here are a few music tracks from the play for you to sample:

If you’re in the Nashville area, go and support Sarah’s labor of love which was 15 years in the making. Here’s info from the website:

JPII High School Theatre presents the World Premier musical of, “Bernadette of Lourdes”, by Sarah Hart and Brian Hull. This is a unique opportunity for our greater Nashville community. The musical starts with Saint Bernadette’s first vision through her death. The difficulties that Bernadette faced as well as the towns people and professionals in the Lourdes’s community that are torn between faith and science present a dynamic mix of questions that ultimately can only be answered by God. It is a true story of a miracle recognized and vetted by the Roman Catholic Church. Sarah Hart and Brian Hull create a world in which music, drama, and faith blend to create a fully immersed theatrical experience. Come see how one young girls visions change the world.
Pope John Paul II High School Auditorium117 Caldwell DriveHendersonville, TN 37075
Dates & Times:March 6th, 7th, 8th at 7pmMarch 9th @ 2pm
Tickets:$12 Adults$10 Students/Seniors

Adult – $12.00
Student/Senior – $10.00