The Duluth Playhouse’s opening night audience for “The Light in the Piazza” was transported back in time to 1953 and one of Europe’s most enchanting and historic cities, Florence, Italy. As one of the show’s early songs explains, it is a place of “Statues and Stories,” an exciting site of “princes, painters, noblemen of logic and art. . . Igniting like a beacon coming out of the dark.”
Margaret Johnson (Kersten Rodau) and her daughter Clara (Jenny LeDoux) are on vacation in this magical city when Clara and Florentine native Fabrizio Naccarelli (Jace LeGarde) have a “meet cute” moment in the piazza when her hat is caught by the wind and blown away.
After he gallantly catches it and returns it to her, their “love at first sight” romance takes them and the audience on a whirlwind of unexpected twists and turns.
The Tony award-winning “The Light in the Pizza” is one of the most challenging musicals the Playhouse has tackled in recent years. The music, the Italian accents, and some of the songs and dialogue done completely in Italian, immerse the audience in a world that is purposely made foreign. This recreates for the audience what it is like to be in another country where one understands little of the language nor of the temperament and culture of its residents.
“Piazza’s” composer and lyricist Adam Guettel is the grandson of famed American composer Richard Rodgers, who famously wrote the music for “The Sound Music,” “Oklahoma,” “Carousel,” and many other of the most famous 20th century musicals.
Guettel’s difficult and demanding score for “Piazza” is modern, and at times even dissonant, but most often it is lush and intensely romantic.
Having a talented sixteen-member orchestra, (under the tight direction of music director Kyle Picha), with a prominent string section, gives a richness to Guettel’s score that is also brought to life by the cast of powerful singers who meet the demands of singing a complex, at times operatic score, often in Italian.
While the show does have humor, it is decidedly a sophisticated and adult musical about love—new and long-since dead, the endless complexities of parenthood, and the challenges and joys of traveling to a foreign country.
Director Phillip Fazio gathered an A-team of designers to help him create his grand vision of this storybook setting city of Florence in a decades past era. Fazio’s deft, sure, and accomplished direction make this show a triumph from start to finish.
Set Designer Tania Barrenchea created a golden and idealized world of 1953 Florence, with set pieces that were changed and placed at different angles and configurations, even moving to suggest, during characters’ walks, different streets and locales.
Lighting Designer Jeff Brown uses all the tricks in his designer’s toolbox to create the literal and metaphorical light in the piazza and environs, with a wash of dappled light, deep shadows, and burning sunlight. Brown’s lighting becomes almost another character and also emphasizes the themes of love as light and the bringing of light and truth to long-buried stories.
Peg Ferguson’s gorgeous costumes are important to establishing character, time, and place. From her colorful Dior-style fitted women’s suits and the casual cinched- waist day dresses, to the tailored, period men’s suits, Ferguson and her team were critical in whisking the audience to the world of post-war Italy, and the styles of dress of the Florentines and the American tourists.
Kudos to dialect coach Kay Capasso whose work, along with Italian pronunciation consultants Lacy Sauter and Patrick Russell, helped the cast members needing to sound Italian come across as convincing and authentic.
The show really belongs to Twin Cities Equity actress Kersten Rodau as Margaret, whose often humorous direct addresses to the audience, beautiful solo pieces, and complex characterizations are the heart and soul of “Piazza.” While she is telling the story of her daughter Clara, she reveals her own lost passions and the misguided steps of her own life.
Rodau creates a believable character who is, at turns, infuriating and sweet, overbearing and well-intended, and tragic and uplifting. Her song “Dividing Day” is a powerful and tragic lament about her failed marriage; her second act “Beauty Is” reprise, and her finale “Fable” where she acknowledges the fallacies of a fairy-tale kind of love but still says a prayer for her daughter to be able love and be loved, are standout moments for Rodau.
Playing Margaret’s fragile, damaged daughter Clara, waiting for her moment, and praying for a love she does not truly understand, LeDoux, was last seen on the Playhouse stage in the lead role in “Cinderella.” Here she also brings a glowing innocence and a burning passion to her character in search of her own fairy tale prince.
Clara longs to define what a beautiful life could be in her “want song” “Beauty Is” and later sings angrily to understand herself after her unexpected “Tirade,” where her troubling confusion and long repressed anger explode.
LeDoux is luminous throughout, always showing an inner light to her character and using her gorgeous soprano voice to tell Clara’s story of love for Fabrizio and even for her mother who is both her adversary and her eternal protector.
Jace LeGarde gives a master class in using his songs, even most often sung in Italian, to show the depth of his emotions and his newfound love for Clara. The role of the romantic hero Fabrizio gives LeGarde a chance to show the power, intensity, and range of his incredible voice and his strong acting skills. While he has stood out in the many other roles he has played, this is the one where audiences can truly marvel at his many talents.
He and Ledoux end act one gorgeously with the romantic duet “Say it Somehow.” They search intensely for ways to express themselves and to show how deeply their feelings for each other are, even while the language barrier is in their way.
As Signor Naccarelli, Fabrizio’s father, understudy Samuel Haggen, represented another shade of the protective parent, wanting only the best for his beloved son. Haggen was impressive filling in for Ole Dack, and if they had not announced this before the show, few in the audience would have known that he was the understudy.
Fabrizio’s other family members, his loving mother (Lacy Sauter), his philandering brother Giuseppe (Antony Ferguson) and his embittered sister-in-law Franca (Alyson Enderle) all give understanding to the Italians equally complex family dynamics.
Each of them has moments to shine as they show that families are basically the same no matter where in the world they reside.
“The Light in the Piazza” deserves to be seen and enjoyed as a unique style of the modern American musical that is sophisticated, fresh, and reminiscent with its soaring score of sweeping musical underscores of movies of the past.
Directing his last show for the Playhouse, Fazio ended by showing that he is at the top of his game with a production that required all the Playhouse’s resources and talents to create this magical show.
Information on “The Light in the Piazza”
Book by Craig Lucas
Music and Lyrics by Adam Guettel
Duluth Playhouse at the NorShor Theatre 211 E. Superior St., Duluth, MN
Performances:
March 14 – 30, 2025
Thursdays – Saturdays at 7:30 pm. Sunday Matinees at 2 pm
Audio Description: March 16 at 2pm ASL Interpretation: March 28 at 7:30pm
To book seats, visit the box office at the NorShor Theatre Monday through Friday 10 am-5 pm, call 218-733-7555, or visit: www.duluthplayhouse.org/shows/the-light-in-the-piazza
Up Next On the Playhouse Main Stage
“Home I’m Darling” May 23-June 1
Written by Laura Wade
Directed by Mary Fox
Tickets on sale now.
Everything is perfect – the house is tidy, the table is set, and Judy’s dress is pressed for when she greets Johnny at the door, martini in hand. It is the 1950s, and life is ordered just right. Or is it?
As the fantasy fades, the edges of this perfect life start to unravel, and we discover that things are not quite what they seem. In “Home, I’m Darling” (winner of the 2019 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy), playwright Laura Wade explores the complications of marriage, cake, and the dangers of nostalgia. (From the Playhouse website)
