The Light in the Piazza
Director's Note
It is always challenging to write notes for a piece weeks before a show’s rehearsal period has been completed. So much changes in the rehearsal hall once we are all together and creating. That said, this unique piece of contemporary musical theatre has already left an indelible impression on all of us involved. First of all, the music is deeply based in the “classical” musical theatre tradition. Perhaps some of this is due to the fact that the composer/librettist, Adam Guettel, is the grandson of the immortal Richard Rodgers of Rodgers and Hammerstein renown (Mr. Guettel and this show won the Tony Award in 2005 for Best Original Score and the show won awards for Best Actress, Best Orchestrations, Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design, and Best Lighting Design). There is a wonderful adult quality to the piece: it is deeply based in reality. It is not a massive, glitzy Broadway musical. It is a smaller ensemble show, intimate and honest.
The story is an unusual one for musical theatre. At first all seems straightforward: in the late 1950s/early 1960s, a mother (Margaret) and her daughter (Clara) have traveled from WinstonSalem, NC on a dream trip to Florence (Firenze), Italy. Margaret hopes to recapture a bygone era of romance in her life. Clara is just grateful and excited to be there, away from staring eyes at home and perhaps sensing that something extraordinary is about to happen for and to her. The tension in the piece comes through Clara’s not-immediately perceptible neurodivergent disorder, the result of a childhood accident. Her over-protective mother, a pre-WW II era bride, has her own journey to embark on. It is a journey to accepting that Clara deserves to have happiness, a chance at a full adult life, a life of happiness with someone she loves, a life quasiindependent of a loving but cloying mother and a father who would just as soon institutionalize her. Even as Clara moves toward her chance at fulfillment, Margaret realizes that her own happiness is only going to come, first, through some painful personal revelations and selfhonesty, then to a more lucid awareness of what it will take for her to lead a positive, relatively happy existence. At the end, Margaret’s journey is just beginning.
The set is based on a professional production I did several years ago. While not a direct copy of that production, the set is based on the beautiful 1950s-1960s graphic tourist posters that airlines used to create for locations to which they were traveling. The posters create a vibrant, springboard for the characters and relationships to leap onto the stage. I am grateful to my then set collaborator, the great Arnulfo Maldonado, for his genius and creativity.
We in the USC Thornton Opera program are also deeply grateful for the collaborative spirit from the technical faculty and staff of the USC School of Dramatic Arts. They have contributed mightily through sharing of their expertise and their time to helping the Opera Program realize our first musical theater production.
- Ken Cazan, Oct 2026