“The most romantic score of any Broadway musical since West Side Story” – The New York Times
“A must-see! The production is breathtaking!” – New York Magazine
“To call it the best new musical is to understate the case” – Wall Street Journal

Portland, Ore. - Direct from Broadway, the romantic new musical THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA continues to win hearts across North America after beginning a 50-week North American Tour in August 2006 in San Francisco and visiting more than 25 cities, including Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston and now Portland, Oregon on April 10 –15, 2007.

Principal casting is complete for the touring production, and leading the cast will be Christine Andreas as Margaret Johnson, a protective Southern matron, Katie Rose Clarke 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.

Katie Rose Clarke and David Burnham join the tour directly from the Broadway cast.

The new musical opened on Broadway 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. With book by Craig Lucas, music and lyrics by Adam Guettel and direction by Bartlett Sher, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA is the winner of six 2005 Tony® Awards, 5 Drama Desk Awards and 2 Outer Critics Circle 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.

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.

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.”

PRINCIPAL CAST

CHRISTINE ANDREAS (Margaret Johnson) Broadway: The Scarlet Pimpernel, Marguerite; Rags, Rebecca; Legs Diamond, Alice; Stardust; On Your Toes, Frankie (Tony Nomination); Oklahoma!, Laurey (Tony Nomination); My Fair Lady, Eliza (Theatre World Award); Angel Street, Nancy; Words & Music. West End: The Fields of Ambrosia, Gretchen. Regional: Pal Joey, Vera (Barrymore Award); Kennedy Center, Tartuffe, Marianne; Sarah & Abraham, Hagar. Solo Concert: Carnegie Hall; Avery Fisher; Café Carlyle, Algonquin’s Oak Room; Caramoor Festival. The White House; Jazz at Kennedy Center; McCallum Theatre; Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Boston, Detroit, Tulsa, and Richmond Symphonies. TV: “Law & Order SVU;” “Cosby Show;” “Another World;” PBS’ “Musical Comedy Tonight.” CDs: Love Is Good; The Carlyle Set, Fynsworth Alley, (USA Today top 10 pick). Here’s to the Ladies, PS Classics, (USA Today top 10 pick). Visit Storybook, Ms. Andreas’ Official Website at christineandreas.com. This performance is for Mac, who like Clara has moved on with dignity into his own life.

KATIE ROSE CLARKE (Clara Johnson) Katie is very pleased to be returning to the role in which she made her Broadway debut. For seven months, she portrayed the role of Clara Johnson at the Lincoln Center Theatre on Broadway, as well as on the national broadcasting of The Light in the Piazza on PBS’ Live From Lincoln Center. Regionally, Katie recently worked under the direction of William Finn at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and at Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars in the chorus of Anything Goes. In December of 2005 she received her BFA from Sam Houston State University, where she portrayed roles such as Mother in Ragtime, Sunny Jacobs in The Exonerated, and Liesl in The Sound of Music.

DAVID BURNHAM (Fabrizio Naccarelli) Broadway: The Light in the Piazza. National tours: Joseph ...Dreamcoat (Joseph), Jesus Christ Superstar (Peter). Regional: world premiere of Tom Jones (Tom, North Shore Music Theatre), Letters from ‘Nam (Billy, original cast, Kennedy Center, North Shore Music Theater, Village Theatre), Peggy Sue Got Married (Charlie, original cast, Marriott Lincolnshire), L.A. premiere of The Woman in Black (The Actor, Coronet Theater), Assassins (Hinckley, Reprise), Godspell (Jesus, MUNY), Wicked (Fiyero, workshops). Film: The King and I, Home on the Range. David is pleased to announce the release of his new solo CD. Look for it at www.LMLMusic.com. Also visit www.DavidBurnham.com.

WENDI BERGAMINI (Franca Naccarelli) National tours: Evita (25th Anniversary tour), Cats (Jellylorum). Regional: Finian’s Rainbow (Westport Country Playhouse), The Baker’s Wife (Goodspeed Opera House), Titanic (CLO South Bay Cities), Iolanthe (NY Gilbert & Sullivan Players), The Grapes of Wrath (The Western Stage). Performed worldwide aboard the famous QE2. Graduate of UC Santa Barbara, BFA in theatre. Many thanks to friends & family. Proud to be a member of AEA. For Nana.

JONATHAN HAMMOND (Giuseppe Naccarelli) acting credits include: Theater for a New Audience, Transport Group, Center Stage, Pittsburgh Public Theater, York Theater Co, Gateway Playhouse, Theaterworks - Palo Alto, Fulton Opera house, Syracuse Stage, Pioneer Theater Company, Meadowbrook Theater Company, Penguin Repertory Company, Barrington Stage, American Repertory Theater, Lark Theater Company, The Public Theater/New Works Now, The Kennedy Center, McCarter Theater Company. Florida Studio Theater, and productions of Forbidden Broadway and Forever Plaid. Television: “Law & Order.” Elliot Norton and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Barrington Stage’s production of Cabaret. Training: The American Repertory Theater for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University and The University Of Michigan.

EVANGELIA KINGSLEY (Signora Naccarelli) Broadway: Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Boheme. Regional: Sweeney Todd (Beggar Woman), Princeton Festival; Into the Woods (Witch), Lyric Opera Cleveland; I Married Wyatt Earp (Kate), Bristol Riverside; A Dream Play (Gatekeeper) and Yerma (Dolores), Cleveland Play House; Antony and Cleopatra (Charmian, u/s Cleopatra), Great Lakes Theatre. Other recent work: Cavalli’s Il Didone (Workshop), Wooster Group; I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky (Consuelo), Alarm Will Sound. Proud Equity member.

DAVID LEDINGHAM (Signor Naccarelli) Steppenwolf’s Tony Award Winning Grapes of Wrath at the National Theatre, London. Off-B’way: Comedy of Errors, The Double Inconstancy, The Trojan Women and Quartet at BAM. Regional: Papermill Playhouse, The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, San Jose Rep, Mark Taper, Milwaukee Rep, Merrimack Rep, Asolo Theatre. Film: Starring in Final Judgement. TV: “Law & Order,” “One Life to Live” (series regular), “Hunter” etc. For Adrianna and Aidan for their love and support during this tour.

CREATIVE TEAM

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!

TICKET AND PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

April 10-15, 2007
(Keller Auditorium, SW 3rd & Clay)

Tues., April 10, Wed. April 11, Thurs. April 12*, Fri., April 13 – 7:30 pm
Saturday, April 14 – 2:00 pm & 7:30 pm
Sunday, April 15 – 1:00 pm & 6:30 pm
* Signed performance for the hearing impaired

Tickets priced $23 - $70 can be purchased . . .

BY PHONE:
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(Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm)

IN PERSON:
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(Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm)
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GROUPS:
20 or more save up to 20% by calling Group Sales at (503) 321-5251
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