‘LIGHT’ SHINES IN ESCONDIDO
RARELY PERFORMED 2005 BROADWAY MUSICAL WON SIX TONY AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Back in 2005, Kari Hayter saw the musical “The Light in the Piazza” for the first time and was so moved by its score and setting that she put it on her bucket list of shows she wanted to direct someday.
“It was so big and so grand and so beautiful,” Hayter said. “It had such unique and captivating music that it gave me a really visceral response. I’d never seen anything like it.”
At the time, Hayter was a high school drama teacher in Los Angeles. She was on a Broadway show trip with her students when they all attended the original Lincoln Center production of “The Light in the Piazza.” Not long after that, she left teaching and went back to grad school to train for a new career as a professional stage director. In 2010, she earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in directing and since then has directed 40 plays and musicals throughout Southern California. But not until now has she had the opportunity to make her bucket-list wish come true.
Hayter is directing “The Light in the Piazza” for CCAE Theatricals in a new production that opens tonight at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.
CCAE Theatricals is a new professional theater company at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, run by cofounders Jordan Beck and J. Scott Lapp. Through a mutual friend, Beck and Lapp invited Hayter to direct the production because they thought she could bring a much-needed perspective to the female-centered story.
The musical is based on a 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. When the daughter, Clara, falls in love with a Florentine boy, Fabrizio, her mother, Margaret, does everything she can to split them up. What Fabrizio and his parents don’t know is that Clara had a childhood brain injury that affects her emotional maturity. Margaret doesn’t want her daughter, or Fabrizio, to end up heartbroken when the truth is revealed.
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. The musical has been produced only once before in San Diego County at Lamb’s Players Theatre in 2008.
Hayter said she doesn’t know why the musical isn’t produced more often. Perhaps it’s because it’s not based on a contemporary movie or famous person, like so many musicals today. Or perhaps it’s because people have the mistaken idea that it’s more of an opera than a musical. Another reason may be that it’s difficult to cast. The score requires singers with great range and vocal control, and some of the songs are sung in Italian.
Fortunately, 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. John LaLonde and Debra Wanger star as Fabrizio’s parents, Signor and Signora Naccarelli.
“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. “This show has also been on all of these actors’ bucket lists for so long.”
Although 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 “The Light in the Piazza” a chance.
“I want people to know there’s something everyone can take away from seeing it,” she said. “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. Everyone is in some kind of relationship of love. If everyone can see that in themselves, they might learn something about how they choose to love.”