Theatre Cedar Rapids bringing ‘Light in the Piazza’ to Brucemore stage

CEDAR RAPIDS — Love at first sight brings another level of luminescence to an open square in Italy in “The Light in the Piazza.”

Theatre Cedar Rapids can’t fly us all to Florence to experience the drama of a controversial young love in that romantic city. But audiences can revel in an evening of outdoor ambience when TCR brings the 2005 Tony-winning musical to Brucemore’s outdoor stage Aug. 9 to 25, 2024.

TCR is coming off a season of big musicals with big challenges, from the technical wizardry of “The Wizard of Oz” to the technical and artistic prowess of the dance in “Something Rotten!”

And now, “The Light in the Piazza” is no summer romp.

It sports the hardest score music director Janelle Lauer has encountered, from constantly changing time signatures to undulating operatic and modern modes.

“It is ridiculously difficult,” Lauer said. “I thought that ‘A Little Night Music’ was hard last year. This is times 10.”

But that’s nothing new for Lauer. She has opera in her blood, having studied that for three years at the University of Iowa, before switching gears, taking a year off, then finishing her degree by studying music business at Nashville’s Belmont University.

Recently joining the TCR staff as resident music director, her head has been spinning throughout the spring and summer, with non-traditional musical theater offerings. After getting “Waitress” on its feet, teaching, conducting and playing the indie-pop score, she tucked “Piazza” rehearsals between “Waitress” performances, and added auditions for the blood-drenched musical “Carrie” into the mix.

“I feel like I have a split personality disorder when it comes to being a music director,” she said.

And each time, the talent has flocked to TCR, eager to take on those challenges.

If you go

What: Theatre Cedar Rapids presents “The Light in the Piazza”

Where: Peggy Boyle Whitworth Amphitheatre at Brucemore, 2160 Linden Dr. SE, Cedar Rapids

When: 7:30 p.m. Aug. 9 to 25, 2024

Run time: 2 hours, with one 15-minute intermission

Tickets: $39 adults; $25 students; theatrecr.org/event/the-light-in-the-piazza/2024-08-09/

Extras: Site opens at 6:45 p.m. for parking, seating and picnicking; bring chairs, blankets, bug spray, food and drink or buy concessions on-site

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Synopsis

Set in 1953 Florence, Italy, the story of “The Light in the Piazza” is as complex as its music. The uniting force is an unlikely love story sparked by a cool breeze carrying the hat off Clara, a naive young American, and into the hands of Florence native Fabrizio strolling by.

Both have lived sheltered lives, and neither family approves of this whirlwind, summer romance. As the action unfolds, family secrets bubble to the surface, challenging the physical and emotional barriers surrounding the couple.

Throughout the show, audiences will see “something beautiful, something lovely, something that pulls at the heartstrings, that is very much a human story that you don’t hear very often,” Lauer said.

Margaret

Rebecca Fields-Moffitt of Iowa City, who generally performs as an ensemble member with several Corridor theater troupes, is stepping outside of her comfort zone and into a leading role as Clara’s mother, Margaret.

An elementary and middle school music teacher in Iowa City schools, Fields-Moffitt had such a good experience doing “A Little Night Music” at Brucemore last summer that she decided to audition for “Piazza,” never dreaming that she’d get a leading role.

“I knew the team and I knew the space, and it was pretty magic,” she said. “So when I saw what the show was going to be, I was like, that’s maybe one of the shows that would get me out in the heat and bugs again. … And then they asked me to take a bigger bite, and (director Angie Toomsen) has been amazing at guiding me through that. … She’s been really wonderful.”

The key?

“You get good people, and you work hard, and you just have to trust that it’s the same thing we tell students, right? You have to trust that everyone wants you to do your best. No matter how you’re feeling about yourself, everyone around you wants you to be wonderful,” she said. “And so I’ve been borrowing a lot of confidence as I’ve been finding my own.”

The character she plays is a fierce mother, wanting only to do right by her daughter, so she whisks her to Florence for a summer vacation to the place where Margaret and her husband honeymooned. She’s hoping to find her own joy again and give her daughter more “outside stimulus” than she can get in her hometown of Winston-Salem, N.C., where everybody knows everybody’s business, Fields-Moffitt said, adding, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be around people who just don’t know the baggage?”

But nothing goes as she had planned.

“Margaret, on the surface, is your average 1950s housewife,” Fields-Moffitt noted. “But she is nothing like a 1950s housewife. She has a lot on her shoulders, as many women do, but she has the luxury of a bank account to afford her some different experiences.

“Through the course of the play, she becomes much stronger than she or the audience ever realized. Clara is her number one, her ride-or-die. She would do anything for Clara, even if it’s the wrong thing.”

Clara

“I’ve always wanted to play this part,” said Catherine Blades of Cedar Rapids, a TCR and Broadway veteran, portraying daughter Clara. “It’s definitely a dream role. … The role is so different, in a way. She’s a young woman, which I’ve played, but there’s a lot of depth to it — more than I realized listening to the cast recording. And she sings a lot more than I thought. It’s been challenging, but very rewarding so far.”

She describes Clara as “young for her age.”

“She’s naive, but I think it’s kind of beautiful,” Blades said. “She doesn't really think before she speaks to strangers. She’s very friendly to everyone.”

With no inherent bias, “she just is walking around asking people questions like, how old are you, to random people. She is sheltered … and she is very spontaneous, which is fun. She loves her mother, and that’s all she needs, until it’s not, and then they deal with that.”

Fabrizio

Tejas Gururaja of Cedar Rapids wraps his artistry and amazing vocals around Fabrizio, who is instantly smitten with Clara, much to his father’s chagrin.

“He’s the classic suave Italian, but he’s a kid. He’s just 20, and lives a very simple — not meaning simple like unintelligent — he just lives a very simple, happy life in Florence,” said Gururaja, an award-winning musician studying opera at Northwestern University in the Chicago metro area.

“He’s lived his entire life in Florence, and this is the first time that he meets someone (new).”

“He’s probably known all the same girls all his life,” Blades added, “and they’re all married.”

“And so he meets Clara, and it’s eye-opening for him. He falls in love immediately, and even though there’s a bit of a culture-slash-language barrier between them, they find a way to make it work.”

Setting

Fields-Moffitt traveled to Florence as a young adult, and feels the show captures the spirit she felt in Italy.

“There’s magic in Florence. For me, personally, I think this (show) gets a lot of the magic of Florence right — just how the light hits things, and it’s beautiful. And how everyone passing you is friendly. You do get some over-friendly folks,” she said with a laugh.

“There’s magic there, and it’s pretty incredible. It’s cool. I went when I was 21, so I was closer to your age,” she said to Blades and Gururaja during a roundtable interview with The Gazette.

“So I’m thinking about how I would view it now, as a middle-aged lady, as opposed to a young college student, because now if I went, I would take my daughter and I would take my son and my husband. We would all go together and it’d be a really different experience.”

An experience more akin to Margaret wanting to revisit the city she experienced as a new bride, and now is sharing the city with her daughter, “her favorite person on the planet,” Fields-Moffitt said.

“When Angie said we’re doing it outside, (Brucemore) is perfect,” Blades added. “This is a perfect spot for it.”

All three have performed on the Brucemore stage before, and joined in a resounding chorus of loving the bugs, the bullfrogs and the heat.

“It might be uncomfortable at some times, but it’s a joy to perform always,” Gururaja said.

"And it’s different being here than being in the theater, which is great, too,“ Blades said, ”but this is like, I’m doing something a little different outside and toughing it out.“

“There’s a magic night,” Fields-Moffitt noted. “I remember it happened last year. There’s just a magic time when the weather’s perfect, and the crowd is great, and the stars are shining. And it’s magic.”

“And you remember your lines,” Blades quipped, making everyone laugh.

“It sounds pretty and everything’s just right,” Fields-Moffitt explained, “and you’re like, ‘I want to do outdoor theater forever.’ Then you have a week like this one, and we’re like, ‘It is so hot and the bugs are biting me. Why did I do this?’

“I feel blessed that I know that (perfect) night’s coming, that moment is coming, and it’ll be perfect,” she said. “And it'll be like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll do this forever.’ ”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com