Today in 2005, Broadway celebrated opening night for one of the most romantic musicals of the 21st century, Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas' The Light in the Piazza, at Lincoln Center Theater's Vivian Beaumont Theater.
Based on a 1960 novella by Elizabeth Spencer鈥攖hat had, ironically, previously been turned down for musicalization by Guettel's grandfather Richard Rodgers and his writing partner Oscar Hammerstein II鈥�The Light in the Piazza centers on a mother and her daughter on vacation in Florence, Italy, in the 1950s. Clara, the daughter, has a chance meeting with a local boy and falls head over heels in love. Stuck herself in a loveless, unfulfilling marriage, Margaret is not pleased with these events for a number of reasons. Chief among them is that Clara, it turns out, was also victim to a head trauma as a 12-year-old, leaving her emotionally stunted and, in Margaret's mind, in need of constant protection.
What transpires is a complex story (with a book by Lucas) that pits Margaret's own troubled relationship to love against her regret and shame over her daughter's accident, setting the scene for an emotional exploration of the power of love, how it is worth seeking, and how endings can sometimes become new beginnings.
When The Light in the Piazza premiered in 2005, Guettel was something of a musical theatre wunderkind, and not merely because of his famous lineage. His first professional work, Floyd Collins (currently making its Broadway debut via Lincoln Center Theater, where Piazza also premiered), had opened in 1996 Off-Broadway, winning Guettel an Obie for his score and Best Musical at the Lucille Lortel Awards. He followed that up with Saturn Returns (later retitled Myths and Hymns) at The Public Theater, another critical success.
But Piazza would turn out to be arguably his most sophisticated work yet, infusing the myriad of emotions bubbling within the story and characters of the piece into a gorgeous and ultimately Tony-winning score. Faced with telling a story that involved characters who have trouble communicating due to a language barrier and Clara's struggle to put words to the turmoil she feels inside, Guettel saw a story uniquely ripe for musicalization. When Clara tries to explain to her mother that she's fallen in love with Fabrizio, she can't really express how she feels, instead waxing poetic about "The Light in the Piazza," how it looked when she met him and the unexplainable way it made her feel. To read Guettel's lyrics to this title song doesn't make a huge impression. Add the music, and suddenly her rich internal life, the depth of her love for this boy comes pouring out.
The work was first developed at Seattle's Intiman Playhouse and Chicago's Goodman Theatre, with Victoria Clark as Margaret and Celia Keenan-Bolger as Clara. By the time the show came to Broadway, Clara was played by Kelli O'Hara, who had been in the musical's first companies in a supporting role. Ironically, Keenan-Bolger ended up starring in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee the same season, and was nominated for a 2005 Tony Award against O'Hara in the same category.
Clark would win the Tony Award for her performance, her first of now two Tony wins (the second for Kimberly Akimbo). That was one of the show's six wins at that years Tonys, with Piazza also taking Best Orchestrations (for Guettel, Bruce Coughlin, and Ted Sperling); Best Score; and Best Scenic (Michael Yeargan), Costume (Catherine Zuber), and Lighting Design (Christopher Akerlind). The show had been nominated in 11 categories, including Best Musical.
Directed by Bartlett Sher (making his Broadway debut), the Broadway cast also included Matthew Morrison (just months before he defected to Hollywood to star in Glee), Michael Berresse, Sarah Uriarte Berry, Patti Cohenour, Beau Gravitte, and Mark Harelik, with an ensemble comprising David Bonanno, David Burnham, Laura Grifith, Prudence Wright Holmes, Jennifer Hughes, Felicity LaFortune, Michel Moinot, and Joseph Siravo.
The show became a hit, extending beyond its initial limited run for LCT's subscribers and playing a 504-performance, 36-preview open-ended commercial run. The show closed July 2, 2006, and was shown live on TV via PBS' Live From Lincoln Center series (with Katie Rose Clark as Clara and Aaron Lazar as Fabrizio).
The work has since become a popular choice at regional theatres around the world, including a NYC return in 2023 at New York City Center Encores! that starred Tony winner Ruthie Ann Miles as Margaret.
Much of the Light in the Piazza team鈥攊ncluding Guettel, Lucas, Sher, and O'Hara鈥攚ould re-team on 2024's Days of Wine and Roses at Broadway's Studio 54.
Take a look back at the original Broadway production of The Light in the Piazza below:
