(Host) The Stowe Theater Guild has built a reputation for mounting ambitious community theater productions.
The company’s latest is no exception, as they take on the show that won 2005’s Tony award for Best Musical.
VPR’s Neal Charnoff takes us Backstage with The Light in the Piazza.
(Charnoff) It’s 1953, and a young American woman, Clara Johnson, goes on holiday to Italy with her mother. The women arrive filled with anticipation and the glow of summertime in Florence.
But of course this is Italy, and romance is in the air. A young man man named Fabrizio becomes smitten with Clara. Clara’s mother learns of the budding affair with Fabrizio, but opposes it for reasons that are gradually revealed to the audience.
"The Light in the Piazza" is based on a 1960 novella with a book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel. Kristen Bures of South Burlington directs this production. She also plays the role of Clara’s mother. Bures says the show has a theme any theatergoer will recognize.
(Bures) "It’s about love and how messy love is and what we’re willing to do for love and the boundaries that we’re willing to cross for love."
(Charnoff) While many recent Broadway musicals have co-opted popular and rock music styles, The Light in the Piazza goes in the opposite direction.
Bures puts the music somewhere between standard musical theater and opera.
She says the unexpected melodic detours mirror the twists and turns that overtake the character’s lives.
(Bures) "It does this really excellent job of showing the different levels of what the characters are feeling? It’s not just minor and major, you have a lot of different weaving of tonality and whatnot."
(Charnoff) Sarah DeGray of South Burlington plays Clara on alternating nights.
DeGray says that playing Clara has been a revelatory experience.
She says that because the play is not well-known, it takes a lot of work to find your way as a performer through unfamiliar territory.
(DeGray) "You don’t have a lot of actors and actresses that have come before you that have done it , that its familiar you can say, oh I know how to play that part , and that’s what’s been really exciting, is people won’t know what to expect and you really get to pour your heart and soul into it."
Vicky Drew of Shelburne is the other actress who plays Clara on alternating performances.
Drew has spent much time studying classical music and opera, only recently stepping back into musical theater.
She says she was surprised at the intensity of passion the role required.
(Drew) "You have to wear it on every inch of your body, wherein the opera-singing world, I found that it’s more from inside, you have to share it as an internal feeling and through the voice…this you have to wear it as your body, and it’s actually a lot more exhausting I found than opera singing."
(Charnoff) This production of The Light in the Piazza is somewhat scaled down from the Broadway version.
Director Kristen Bures says that the small budget of community theater demands creativity, and that has only benefited this staging.
The production uses a five-piece chamber version of the original 13-piece orchestration, and Bures says a broad spectrum of color in the lighting adds resonance.
(Bures) "It’s the perfect way to tell the fairy tale, to tell this fable. Nothing is too big or over-the-top, it makes it that much more intimate and that much more accessible."
(Charnoff) James Blanchard of Winooski plays Fabrizio. He says the Best Musical Tony awarded to "The Light In The Piazza" was well-deserved.
(Blanchard) "I think this musical is very unlike a lot of people’s decades-old perceptions of musical theater, and I hope they’ll come and have their expectations defied."
For VPR News, I’m Neal Charnoff.
Note: The Light In the Piazza will be performed at The Town Hall Theater in Stowe through October 9th.