'Piazza' Inaugurates Carnival Performing Arts Center
By: Beau Higgins Aug. 09, 2006
THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA,
THE MULTI-TONY ® AWARD-WINNING MUSICAL, ARRIVES DIRECT
FROM BROADWAY TO MIAMI'S NEW CARNIVAL CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS,
OPENING SEPTEMBER 26 AT SANFORD AND DOLORES ZIFF BALLET OPERA HOUSE
CELEBRATED, ROMANTIC NEW MUSICAL TO INAUGURATE FIVE-PRODUCTION
2006-2007 BROADWAY ACROSS AMERICA-MIAMI SUBSCRIPTION SEASON INCLUDING
Chita Rivera: THE DANCER'S LIFE, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, WICKED AND
TWELVE ANGRY MEN STARRING Richard Thomas AND George Wendt.
MIAMI---In a glamour-packed premiere anticipated to bring the first full house of residents and tourists to South Florida's spectacular new Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, Stanford Broadway Across America-Miami, presented by Moët & Chandon, will inaugurate its 2006-2007 subscription season from Tuesday, September 26 through Sunday, October 1 with the six time 2005 Tony ® Award-winning much-celebrated Craig Lucas/Adam Guettel romantic musical THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, at the Center's 2,400-seat Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House.
The Miami engagement of THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA is presented by Florida Theatrical Association in partnership with Carnival Center for the Performing Arts.
THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA will play Tuesday, September 26 through Sunday, October 1 with performances Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8pm, Sunday evening at 7:30pm and Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2pm. Beginning Sunday, August 13th, tickets ranging from $20.00 - $69.00 can be purchased through Carnival Center by phone at 305-949-6722 or online at www.carnivalcenter.org. Tickets are also available through Ticketmaster phones at 954-523-3309 in Broward, 305-358-5885 in Dade, and 561-966-3309 in Palm Beach or at www.ticketmaster.com and at Ticketmaster outlets. Orders for groups of 20 or more may be placed by calling the Broadway Across America at 1-800-6GROUPS (647-6877).
THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA is the first Broadway musical to be presented at Carnival Center. Audiences will have the opportunity to experience the extraordinary effort that has been expended to bring South Florida audiences one of the largest performing arts centers in the U.S. Designed by world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the Center houses the 2,400-seat Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House as well as the 2,200-seat Knight Concert Hall, the 200-seat black box Studio Theater, the Peacock Education Center, an expansive outdoor Plaza for the Arts, and a restored 1929 Art Deco tower - all of which will combine to create South Florida's premier entertainment venue.
Directed by Bartlett Sher, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, which scored six 2005 Tony ® Awards, five Drama Desk Awards and two Outer Critics Circle Awards will star Christine Andreas as Margaret Johnson, a protective Southern matron, Elena Shaddow as her daughter Clara, a beautiful 26-year-old American traveling abroad, and David Burnham as Fabrizio Naccarelli, a 20-year-old Italian suitor who barely speaks English and is the source of the romantic tension central to the story.
The cast will also feature Laura Griffith, Jonathan Hammond, David Ledingham, Brian Sutherland and Diane Sutherland.
Burnham, Griffith, and Diane Sutherland come direct from the Broadway cast as do ensemble members Prudence Wright Holmes and Adam Overett. Craig Bennett, Wendi Bergamini, Jane Brockman, Sean Hayden, Leslie Henstock, John Charles Kelly and Evangelia Kingsley round out the company.
With book by Craig Lucas, music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, and direction by Bartlett Sher, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA opened on Broadway in April 2005 and instantly became a favorite of critics and audiences alike, extending its run until July 2006 at Lincoln Center Theater's Vivian Beaumont Theater. The musical received various awards for its acclaimed New York run and was recently seen nationwide on PBS's "Live From Lincoln Center."
The musical, based on the novella by Elizabeth Spencer, is set in the summer of 1953 and tells the Story of a mother and daughter traveling through Italy, the daughter's romance with a handsome, high-spirited Florentine, and the mother's determined efforts to keep the two apart. The beautiful songs echo the romantic feelings of love and have been the key to winning the hearts of audiences. Composer Guettel has been praised for capturing "that transcendent, irrational state familiar to anyone who has fallen head over heels in love" (The New York Times) in his score for THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA.
Composer Guettel explains what audiences can expect: "With THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, I tried to write music that would sound like the experience of falling in love, to evoke the feeling of it, or memory, or wish. After all, there's a piazza in every American city and I hope that our show brings something genuinely romantic."
NETworks presents the Lincoln Center Theater production, which reunites the award-winning creative team from Broadway.
The musical has sets by Michael Yeargan (2005 Tony® Award winner), costumes by Catherine Zuber (2005 Tony® Award winner), lighting by Christopher Akerlind (2005 Tony® Award winner), sound by ACME Sound Partners, orchestrations by Ted Sperling, Adam Guettel and Bruce Coughlin (2005 Tony® Award winners), music direction by Kimberly Grigsby and musical staging by Jonathan Butterell. The official website for the tour is www.piazzaontour.com.
The Original Cast Recording of THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, praised as "Sublime," "Ravishing" and "Rhapsodic" by The New York Times, is available on Nonesuch Records, and 4 tracks are available now at http://www.nonesuch.com/Hi_Band/piazza/.
Playwright Craig Lucas' other plays include Reckless, The Dying Gaul and Blue Window. His screenplays include adaptations The Secret Lives of Dentists, Longtime Companion and adaptations of his plays: Prelude to A Kiss, Reckless, Blue Window and, most recently, The Dying Gaul, which also marked his directorial debut and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Adam Guettel won the 2005 Tony® Awards for Best Original Score and for Best Orchestrations for The Light in the Piazza. He wrote the music and lyrics for the musical Floyd Collins and for Saturn Returns: A Concert, which was recorded by Nonesuch Records under the title Myths and Hymns. He wrote the music for the New York Theatre Workshop production of John Guare's Lydie Breeze and collaborated with Guare on Love's Fire for the Acting Company. He scored the feature documentary, Arguing the World and the CBS documentary Jack. Four of his songs are featured on Audra McDonald's recording Way Back To Paradise.
Bartlett Sher, the Artistic Director of Seattle's Tony® Award winning Intiman Theatre, won the Callaway Award for his direction of the Theatre For A New Audience (TFANA) production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, which was the first American Shakespeare production to be seen at the Royal Shakespeare Company. His other New York productions include Moliere's Don Juan, Harley Granville Barker's Waste and Pericles for TFANA, Teresa Rybeck's The Butterfly Collection at Playwrights Horizons, and Mourning Becomes Electra for the New York City Opera. This season, he directed the Tony® Award winning revival of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!
www.BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com.
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