Where: California Center for the Arts, Escondido, 340 N. When: Opens tonight and runs through June 25. If everyone can see that in themselves, they might learn something about how they choose to love.” ‘The Light in the Piazza’ Everyone is in some kind of relationship of love. “It’s a love story about trying to communicate and trying to be heard, and it’s about how do I love somebody and let somebody love me. “I want people to know there’s something everyone can take away from seeing it,” she said. “This show has also been on all of these actors’ bucket lists for so long.”Īlthough the musical’s story is set in 1950s Italy and it’s not a title that local audiences know well, Hayter said she hopes theatergoers will give “Light in the Piazza” a chance. “It’s very rare when I can cast a production and say ‘this is my ideal Clara’ and this is my ideal Fabrizio.’ I couldn’t have found a better cast and I’m not exaggerating,” Hayter said. John LaLonde and Debra Wanger star as Fabrizio’s parents, Signor and Signora Naccarelli. The score requires singers with great range and vocal control, and some of the songs are sung in Italian.įortunately, Hayter said she couldn’t be happier with her 15-member cast, which includes San Diego resident Nancy Snow Carr as Margaret, Madison Claire Parks as Clara and Nigel Huckle as Fabrizio. Another reason may be that it’s difficult to cast. Or perhaps it’s because people have the mistaken idea that it’s more of an opera than a musical. Perhaps it’s because it’s not based on a contemporary movie or famous person, like so many musicals today. Hayter said she doesn’t know why the musical isn’t produced more often.

The musical has only been produced once before in San Diego County at Lamb’s Players Theatre in 2008. The musical’s book is by Craig Lucas, who won the 1990 Tony Award for Best Play for “Prelude to a Kiss,” and the Tony-winning score is by Adam Guettel, who is the grandson of famed Broadway composer Richard Rodgers.

Margaret doesn’t want her daughter, or Fabrizio, to end up heartbroken when the truth is revealed. What Fabrizio and his parents don’t know is that Clara had a childhood brain injury that affects her emotional maturity. When the daughter, Clara, falls in love with a Florentine boy, Fabrizio, her mother, Margaret, does everything she can to split them up. The musical “Light in the Piazza” is based on the 1960 novella by Elizabeth Spencer about a mother and her adult daughter from the American South who are spending a summer together in Italy in 1953.

Light in the piazza novella