Jamieson and French Are Mother and Daughter for Piazza's Canadian Premiere Jan. 30

By Kenneth Jones
07 Jan 2010

Acting Up Stage Company will present the Canadian premiere of The Light in the Piazza Jan. 30-Feb. 21 at the Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs in Toronto.

Opening night is Feb. 1. The Tony Award-winning musical by Craig Lucas (book) and Adam Guettel (music and lyrics) will feature Patty Jamieson (a Shaw Festival veteran and a Dora Award nominee for Acting Up's A Man of No Importance) as Margaret, Jacquelyn French (The Boys in the Photograph) as Clara, Juan Chioran (Broadway's Kiss of the Spider Woman) as Signor Naccarelli, Jeff Lillico (Soulpepper, Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival) as Fabrizio, Christina Gordon (Stratford Festival) as Signora Naccarelli, Lee MacDougall (Stratford Festival) as Roy, Tracy Michailidis (Broadway's Beauty and the Beast, Shaw Festival, Stratford Festival) as Franca, Michael Torontow (Hairspray) as Giuseppe and Becca Zadorsky.

Joining director Robert McQueen is a creative team that includes musical director Jonathan Monro (Stratford Festival), set and lighting designer Phillip Silver (three-time Dora Award winner), stage manager Stephanie Nakamura and costume designer Alex Amini. Artistic producer Mitchell Marcus brings the show to Toronto.

Set in Italy in 1953, The Light in the Piazza tells the story of Margaret, a middle-aged housewife who takes her wide-eyed 26-year-old daughter to Florence, where she falls in love with a young handsome Italian who barely speaks English and doesn't notice that Clara is not like other women.

According to Acting Up, "Weighing her daughter's newfound happiness against the expectations that she and her husband had set out for Clara's life, Margaret is forced to wrestle with her own cynicism in an attempt to accept a love that transcends language, culture, and circumstance."

Acting Up Stage Company is entering its sixth season of producing intimate, contemporary musical theatre productions in Toronto. The company has produced the Dora Award-nominated A New Brain, A Man of No Importance and Elegies: A Song Cycle, as well as the Toronto premieres of john & jen and Edges, and the Canadian premiere of tick, tick…BOOM!

Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs is at 26 Berkeley Street in Toronto. For tickets and information, call (416) 368-3110 or visit www.lightinthepiazza.ca.