The Light in the Piazza (musical)

The Light in the Piazza
Poster for the original Broadway production
Music	Adam Guettel
Lyrics	Adam Guettel
Book	Craig Lucas
Basis	Novella by Elizabeth Spencer The Light in the Piazza
Productions	2003 Seattle 2005 Broadway 2006 US National Tour 2009 Leicester 2010 Toronto
Awards	2005 Tony Award for Best Score Drama Desk Outstanding Music

The Light in the Piazza is a musical with a book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel. Based on a novella by Elizabeth Spencer, the story is set in the 1950s and revolves around Margaret Johnson, a wealthy Southern woman and her developmentally stalled daughter, Clara, who spend a summer together in Italy. When Clara falls in love with a young Italian man, Margaret is forced to reconsider not only Clara's future, but her own deep seated hopes and regrets as well.

The score breaks from the 21st century tradition of pop music on Broadway by moving into the territory of Neoromantic classical music and opera, with unexpected harmonic shifts and extended melodic structures, and is more heavily orchestrated than most Broadway scores. Many of the lyrics are in Italian or broken English, as many of the characters are fluent only in Italian.

The Light in the Piazza was developed as a musical at the Intiman Playhouse in Seattle in June 2003 and then at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in early 2004. After 36 previews, the Broadway production opened on April 18, 2005 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center, where it ran for 504 performances and closed on July 2, 2006. The musical was directed by Bartlett Sher, choreographed by Jonathan Butterell, with lighting by Christopher Akerlind, set by Michael Yeargan and costumes by Catherine Zuber. The cast featured Victoria Clark, Kelli O'Hara, Matthew Morrison, Michael Berresse and Sarah Uriarte Berry. Chris Sarandon joined the cast as Signor Naccarelli later in the run, Aaron Lazar was a replacement in the role of Fabrizio Naccarelli and Katie Rose Clarke was a replacement in the role of Clara Johnson. In the pre-broadway production in Seattle and Chicago, Kelli O'Hara played the role of Franca rather than Clara (who was played by Celia Keenan-Bolger), and Steven Pasquale had played Fabrizio, but could not open on Broadway due to a conflict with the television series Rescue Me that he had just joined.