PBS viewers will get a prime seat for 'Light in the Piazza'

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NEW YORK -- Your opportunities to see The Light in the Piazza live from Lincoln Center are running out. But tonight, you can catch the acclaimed Broadway musical on TV's Live from Lincoln Center.

The PBS program, now in its 30th year of showcasing performances from the New York landmark, will broadcast the musical live at 8 ET (and tape-delayed at 8 PT, times may vary) -- or a few minutes later, depending on when the cast, crew and orchestra get things started at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre, where the show completes its run July 2.

Based on a novella by Elizabeth Spencer, the musical follows an elegant American matron, Margaret Johnson, and her grown but curiously childlike daughter, Clara, on an Italian holiday. Romance and turmoil ensue when Clara meets a dashing young man named Fabrizio, and Margaret is forced to reassess a delicate situation that has haunted her for years.

Piazza features a book by Craig Lucas and a Tony Award-winning score by Adam Guettel. Victoria Clark also won a Tony for her portrayal of Margaret; in tonight's performance, she is joined by Katie Clarke and Aaron Lazar as Clara and Fabrizio, roles respectively played by Kelli O'Hara and Matthew Morrison when the show opened on Broadway in April 2005.

Guettel, the grandson of legendary musical theater composer Richard Rodgers, says he's "very curious" about how his work will be perceived by a national audience. He should be, since the show kicks off a national tour Aug. 1, at San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre. (More dates and venues are available at www.piazzaontour.com.)

Though it collected additional Tonys for scenic, costume and lighting design (as well as orchestrations), Piazza isn't long on the sort of flash that has made crowds flock to musical productions in and outside New York in recent years.

"We don't feature a lot of pyrotechnics or power ballads," Guettel says. "It's more psychologically naturalistic. The production enhances the storytelling. One of my hopes for the TV presentation is that the audience will get a sense that live theater is the ultimate bricks-and-mortar business. It's bricks, mortar and talented bodies, telling a story in real time."

Kirk Browning, the veteran TV director overseeing Piazza's transfer to the small screen, says that the musical, which Bartlett Sher directed for Broadway, still presents technical challenges.

"It's an intimate love story told in very theatrical terms," Browning says. "And because of all the detailed direction, there's a lot of simultaneous action. The beauty of theater is that you have the double vision of the whole and the specific. On TV, you have to make choices."

Working from an archival performance tape, Browning "broke it down into something like 900 shots. I gave (Sher) the script, and told him where each shot begins and ends." The results were fine-tuned during practice runs on Tuesday and Wednesday.

During the show's intermission Thursday, Live will run a few pre-taped segments, including interviews with Guettel and cast members and a special feature on how the crew makes a hat fly, in an early scene where the young lovers meet.

"We bring you backstage and into the piece more strongly," says Live executive producer John Goberman. "I think that will help people understand the second half better, and appreciate some of the thinking behind the structure and the intent of the creators, as well as the challenges to the performers. This piece is terribly important to them."

Sher is also optimistic that the broadcast will enhance Piazza's prospects on the road.

"The tour will look very similar to this show," the stage director says. "The experience will be very similar to what you would see at Lincoln Center, or watching Live from Lincoln Center. So people will get a broader taste for what it is. They'll be able to slow down and experience a great story being told."

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