TheatreWorks Silicon Valley

A MUSICAL ROMANCE

THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA

Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts

August 25—September 19, 2010

Winner of 6 Tony Awards
Beneath the Tuscan sun in 1953, this illuminating Broadway hit celebrates the many facets of love with a vibrant heart. A protective American mother is vacationing with her radiant but fragile daughter, who falls head over heels for a passionate young Florentine. To the soaring melodies of what The New York Times called “the most intensely romantic score since West Side Story,” all three embark on a life-changing journey beyond danger into light.

"A superior achievement...one of the most significant musicals of the decade."
The New York Times

*Visual Voice audio described performances 9/17 8pm, 9/18 8pm, 9/19 2pm 

Groups of 8 or more save 15%! Contact Rachel Wilde at 650.463.7170 or at rwilde@theatreworks.org for more information or to make a reservation.

The Light In the Piazza is presented through special arrangement with R & H Theatrical: http://www.rnh.com

"Beguiling...lush, sophisticated...radiant...passionate...Piazza makes us feel elated."
San Francisco Chronicle

"Every minute of The Light in the Piazza is captivating...Four stars...our hearts sail through this tale of young love."
SF Theater Blog

"A score so lush and ravishing, so full of feeling, that it gives the intimate, finely drawn story the sweep of an epic."
Scene 2: A San Francisco Theater Blog

"This is what the magic of good theatre is all about...We are fortunate to have TheatreWorks."
Stark Silver Creek

Watch Loni Kao Stark's interview with actress Whitney Bashor.

"The production is blessed with beautiful, handsome and excellent actors who can sing beautifully."
San Mateo Daily Journal

"Magnificent...deeply gratifying...most satisfying evening of musical theatre."
My Cultural Landscape

"Robert Kelley's delicate direction tenderly steeps the piece in the wonders of Florence."
Mercury News

	NICOLAS ALIAGA (Giuseppe) has been singing and directing throughout the Bay Area for the last fourteen years. Mr. Aliaga has largely devoted his time to a career in opera, but is delighted to return to musical theater, his first love. He has performed at Opera San José, singing the role of Wagner in Faust and Zingaro Vecchio in Il Trovatore. For Pocket Opera, he has sung the roles of Figaro in Marriage of Figaro, Papageno in Magic Flute, and many others. Other companies he has performed with include Berkeley Opera, Oakland Opera Theater, and Sonoma City Opera. He also spent several months singing throughout Switzerland with a Jazz/Musical Theater quartet. When not performing, Mr. Aliaga is the Production Manager for Pocket Opera, as well as the Education Associate for San Francisco Opera Guild.
	CAROLINE ALTMAN* (Signora Naccarelli) has appeared in Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters (Mary) with Oakland Opera, Ruthless! (Judy/ Ginger) with California Cabaret Theatre, Dearly Beloved (Patsy) with Willows Theatre Company, and numerous roles with 42nd Street Moon including Nymph Errant (Evangeline), Three Sisters (Mary), Louisiana Purchase (Marina), The Golden Apple (Penelope), and Fanny (Fanny). Additional appearances include featured roles at California Shakespeare Theatre, Woodminster Summer Musicals, and San Diego Lyric Opera.  She received a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Whispers on the Wind at Playhouse West. Touring credits include National Theatre for Children, the 40’s vocal trio Hold Tight, and vocal engagements throughout Europe. Ms. Altman received her degree in vocal performance and Italian from UC San Diego, is a director and composer, and currently Director of Education at San Francisco Opera Guild.
	WHITNEY BASHOR* (Clara) was in the National Tours of Happy Days (Joanie Cunningham) and Whistle Down the Wind (Swallow) and appeared off-Broadway in The Fantasticks (Luisa). She has appeared in New York workshops of Picnic at Hanging Rock (Lincoln Center), Disney’s High School Musical 2 (Sharpay), and Sleeping Beauty Wakes (McCarter Infest). Regionally her credits include The Light in the Piazza (Clara) for Philadelphia Theatre Company, Broadway Three Generations (Kennedy Center), Hot n’ Cole (Westport Country Playhouse), To the Lighthouse (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), and Edges (Capital Repertory Theatre). Her TV and film appearances include Love Monkey, All My Children, Boardwalk Empire, and Off the Black. Ms. Bashor is a graduate of the BFA Musical Theatre Program at the University of Michigan.
	REBECCA EICHENBERGER* (Margaret) has been on Broadway in The Phantom of the Opera (Carlotta), 1776, A Grand Night For Singing, The Frogs, and Carousel at Lincoln Center as well as the National Tour of Carousel (Nettie) directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner. She was Mother in the National Tour of Ragtime and originated the roles of Ruth’s Mother and Susannah in Dessa Rose (Lincoln Center). Ms. Eichenberger’s regional credits include Grey Gardens (Little Edie) at Portland Center Stage, Sunday in the Park with George (Dot) at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Carousel (Carrie) at Denver Center Theatre Company, and Master Class (Sharon) at George Street Playhouse. She has sung with The Boston Pops, at Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall. Film and TV includes The Object of My Affection and Law and Order. She attended the University of Southern California.
	RICHARD FREDERICK* (Roy Johnson) recently appeared at TheatreWorks as Elliot in Opus and Mr. Weston in Emma. Regional credits include Shenandoah at Ford’s Theatre (DC); Sweeney Todd and Camelot at The Hangar Theatre (NY); The Complete History of America Abridged at Casa Manana (Ft. Worth); Our Town at Theatre Three (Dallas); Travels with My Aunt at Stage West (Ft. Worth). His Bay Area credits include Me and My Girl (Bob Barking), Phantom (Cholet), and The Big Bang (Boyd) with American Musical Theatre of San Jose, as well as shows at 42nd Street Moon, Willows Theatre Company, Central Works in Berkeley, and Oakland’s TheatreFIRST. He was Esau in the film Contractor’s Routine (official selection 2010 Buffalo/ Niagra Film Festival) and received his MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre.
	CONSTANTINE GERMANACOS* (Fabrizio) has appeared in New York in Fanny with Encores!, off-Broadway in For Lovers Only and in readings of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever directed by Michael Mayer, The Unsinkable Molly Brown directed by Kathleen Marshall, Inconnu directed by Michael Greif, and A Room With A View. His regional credits include The Light In The Piazza (Pioneer Theatre), Brigadoon (Merry-Go-Round Playhouse), HMS Pinafore (The Palace Theatre), Les Misérables (California Musical Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre), concerts with Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and with Paul Gemignani, and several appearances at North Shore Music Theatre including The Three Musketeers (also with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre). He trained at Manhattan School of Music and American Conservatory Theater. He would like to dedicate his performance to his San Franciscan grandparents, Claude and Louise Rosenberg.
	ARIELA MORGENSTERN* (Franca) is a native San Franciscan, and understudied in TheatreWorks’ Vanities, A New Musical. She played Franca earlier this year at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Ms. Morgenstern has performed as the soloist in the Imant Raminsh’s The Symphony of Psalms at Carnegie Hall, and after specializing in his music for many years, was recently honored to win the Kurt Weill Foundation’s International Lotte Lenya Competition. She was in the award-winning off-Broadway musical, Adding Machine, and other credits include Carmen (Carmen) with the San Francisco Lyric Opera, The Threepenny Opera (Jenny) with West Bay Opera, and The Man of La Mancha (Aldonza) with Flat Rock Playhouse. She is also a company member of Studio 42, a theatre company dedicated to producing daring, large-scale, “unproducible” works in New York. www.arielamorgenstern.com
	CHELSEA NENNI (Florentine, Franca u/s) is proud to make her debut performance with TheatreWorks. With 42nd Street Moon, she appeared in Ben Franklin in Paris (Carmelita) and Wildcat (Inez). She recently performed in Funny Girl (Fanny Brice) with Diablo Theatre Company, Peter Pan (Peter Pan), and Guys and Dolls (Sarah Brown) with Tri-Valley Repertory Theatre. Additional Bay Area credits include Carousel (Julie Jordan) with Golden State Theatre Productions and Delval Divas (Sharon Watson) with Pacifica Spindrift Players. Operatic roles include Our Town (Ensemble) with Festival Opera, Die Fledermaus (Adele) with Inland Valley Opera, and Die Zauberflöte (First Spirit) with Opera  San José. Ms. Nenni is a graduate of Chapman University’s Conservatory of Music.
	COLIN THOMSON* (Priest/Ensemble) last appeared at TheatreWorks in The Learned Ladies of Park Avenue and All My Sons, as well as several New Works workshops. Other local performances include The Most Happy Fella in concert with Symphony Silicon Valley, The Odd Couple, A Flea In Her Ear, and Enter the Guardsman with San Jose Repertory Theatre; Dirty Blonde, The Seafarer, Glengarry Glen Ross, Cumberland Blues, and Lend Me A Tenor with San Jose Stage Company; as well as Guys And Dolls and West Side Story with American Musical Theatre of San Jose. Other Bay Area performances include the multiple Bay Area Critics Circle Award winning production of All Shook Up with Center REPertory Company. He recently made his network TV debut as a workplace gunman on NBC’s Trauma. More information at colinthomson.com
	MARTIN VIDNOVIC* (Signor Nacarelli) has Broadway credits including Brigadoon (Tony Nomination), Baby (Drama Desk Award), Oklahoma! (LA Drama Critic’s Award), A Grand Night For Singing (Bistro Award), The King and I (Lun Tha) and Home Sweet Homer (Antinuous) both starring Yul Brynner, Guys and Dolls (Sky), King David (Saul), and Olympus on My Mind (Jupiter). He played Bellomy in the off-Broadway revival of The Fantasticks, and debuted three solo cabaret shows at the Metropolitan Room in NYC: What Matters To Me… Songs I love, I Believe In You…Broadway and Beyond, and most recently You Make Me Feel So Young… Songs of Frank and Tony. He can be heard as the voice of the King in the animated feature film The King and I, now in CD/DVD release.  He also teaches voice privately in New York City.
	NOEL WOOD (Florentine Man) has been seen at TheatreWorks in M Butterfly, the world premiere of Baby Taj, Shakespeare in Hollywood (Cagney) and The Last Night of Ballyhoo (Peachy Weil) for which he won a Dean Goodman Choice Award. His other work includes Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes’ Monsters and Prodigies (Napoleon) at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco; The Nerd (title role) at City Lights Theatre Company in San Jose; Twelfth Night (Sebastian) at Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival; Moon Over Buffalo (Paul) at Altarena Playhouse; and The Taming of the Shrew (Petruchio), Greetings! (Mickey), and Scapin (Scapin) at Bus Barn Stage Company. Mr. Wood is currently developing a one-man show based on the Nobel Award-winning physicist Richard Feynman.
	ADAM GUETTEL (Music and Lyrics/ Orchestrations) a composer and lyricist, was honored with two Tony Awards (Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations) and two Drama Desk Awards (Best Music and Best Orchestrations) for The Light in the Piazza which he wrote with Craig Lucas.  Guettel wrote the music and lyrics for Floyd Collins, winner of the Lortel Award for Best Musical and an Obie for Best Music, which was performed at TheatreWorks in 2001. Saturn Returns, a concert at The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, was recorded as Myths and Hymns. Other works include the music for Uncle Vanya at Intiman Theatre in 2007 and Love’s Fire, with John Guare, for The Acting Company. Film scores include Arguing the World and Jack. Honors include the Stephen Sondheim Award (1990), ASCAP New Horizons Award (1997) and American Composers Orchestra Award (2005).
	CRAIG LUCAS (Book) wrote the plays Missing Persons; Blue Window; Reckless; Prelude to a Kiss (Obie Award, Tony Award, and Pulitzer Prize nominations); God’s Heart; The Dying Gaul (Pulitzer Prize nomination); Stranger; Small Tragedy (Obie Award Best Play); The Singing Forest (American Theater Critics/Steinberg Award, Best American Play); Prayer for My Enemy; and the book for The Light in the Piazza (Tony Award nomination). His screenplays include Longtime Companion, The Secret Lives of Dentists, Prelude to a Kiss, Reckless, Blue Window, and The Dying Gaul. He created Marry Me a Little: Songs by Stephen Sondheim with Norman René, and wrote the musical play Three Postcards (composer/lyricist Craig Carnelia), the libretto for the opera Orpheus in Love and adapted Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and Miss Julie. He received the LA Drama Critics Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and the LAMBDA Literary Award.
	ROBERT KELLEY (Director) is a Bay Area native and Stanford University graduate. He founded TheatreWorks in 1970 and has been its Artistic Director ever since. He has directed over 150 TheatreWorks productions, including many world or regional premieres. In 2003 he received the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Paine Knickerbocker Award for lifetime achievement. He has garnered BATCC Awards for Outstanding Direction for his productions of Into the Woods, Pacific Overtures, Rags, Sweeney Todd, Another Midsummer Night, Sunday in the Park with George, Jane Eyre, and Caroline, or Change; Bay Area Drama-Logue Awards for his direction of Ah, Wilderness! and Once in a Lifetime; Dean Goodman Choice Awards for Violet, Ragtime, Proof, Dolly West’s Kitchen, and Harold & Maude; and Back Stage West Garland Awards for his direction of Side Show and Sunday in the Park with George. He recently directed To Kill a Mockingbird, A Civil War Christmas; Yellow Face; Tinyard Hill; Snapshots; Caroline, or Change; and productions of Emma at TheatreWorks, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.
FUMIKO BIELEFELDT (Costume Designer) has designed over 50 productions for TheatreWorks  since 1983, including A Civil War Christmas; Yellow Face; Twentieth Century; Caroline, or Change; and Emma, traveled to Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (Kevin Klein Awards Nominee).  Her designs have also appeared in the Bay Area at American Conservatory Theater, Aurora Theatre Company, California Shakespeare Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, and Magic Theatre, among others. She is a graduate of Waseda University in Tokyo and studied costume design at Stanford. Ms. Bielefeldt has received many awards for her designs, including the 2004 Barbara Bladen Porter Special Award, Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Awards, Dean Goodman Choice Awards, Back Stage West Garland, and the Drama-Logue Award.
CLIFF CARUTHERS (Sound Designer) has created soundscapes and music for over a hundred Bay Area productions. He is resident sound designer for TheatreWorks, an artistic associate of Cutting Ball Theatre, and a company member of Crowded Fire. Recent and current theatre projects include Auctioning the Ainsleys and Opus at TheatreWorks, Crime and Punishment and Tragedy: a Tragedy for Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Victims of Duty for Cutting Ball, Drip for Crowded Fire, Bug and Dead Man’s Cell Phone for SF Playhouse, Caucasian Chalk Circle and November for American Conservatory Theater, and Happy Days for Guthrie Theater. Outside theatre, he is co-curator of the San Francisco Tape Music Center and technical director for the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. His electronic music has been performed at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial, 964 Natoma, Deep Wireless, Noise Pancakes, SFEMF, SFTMF, and the SEMUS.
PAMILA Z. GRAY (Lighting Designer) recently designed the world premiere of Tinyard Hill, the West Coast premiere of A Civil War Christmas, TheatreWorks’ world premiere production of Baby Taj and the company’s world premieres of My Ántonia and Kept. Her work on Bingo! The Musical was seen in Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale, and the Bay Area’s Center REPertory Company. Her designs have also been seen in Portland, Sacramento, Houston, Dallas, and Washington, DC. She has won 7 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards including her TheatreWorks designs for Grey Gardens, Floyd Collins, Cabaret, and Almost September, which also garnered a Bay Area Drama-Logue Award. She has won four Dean Goodman Awards, including both Ragtime and The Cripple of Inishmaan, at TheatreWorks. Ms. Gray is a graduate of Northwestern University.
WILLIAM LIBERATORE (Musical Director) is TheatreWorks’ resident musical director having conducted more than twenty shows including Grey Gardens, Merrily We Roll Along, Dessa Rose, Harold and Maude, Crowns, My Àntonia, Jane Eyre, Ragtime, Smokey Joe’s Café, and Pacific Overtures. He was the musical director at American Musical Theatre of San Jose conducting more than 30 shows including Flower Drum Song, Little Shop of Horrors, Gypsy, A Chorus Line, The Wizard of Oz, 42nd Street, Follies, Children of Eden, and Crazy for You. Mr. Liberatore has won Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for A Little Night Music, South Pacific, and Damn Yankees (AMTSJ) and Bat Boy; Into the Woods; Emma; and Caroline, or Change (TheatreWorks). He is also the choral director at Gunn High School, and is proudly conducting Symphony Silicon Valley’s Broadway in Concert Series this year.
LESLIE MARTINSON (Casting Director) is TheatreWorks’ Associate Artist and Casting Director. For TheatreWorks, she has directed Theophilus North, If We Are Women, Brilliant Traces, The Boys Next Door, Interpreters, Stepping Out, and The Voice of the Prairie among others. A graduate of Occidental College, she was a Watson Fellow, a member of Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, a member of the LaMaMa International Directing Symposium, and has served on Theatre Bay Area’s Theatre Services Committee since 2002. In 2009, she was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in Stage Direction from the Arts Council of Silicon Valley for artistic achievement and community impact. She leads master classes, workshops, coachings, and panels for many Bay Area universities, academies, and theatre companies.
REBECCA MUENCH* (Stage Manager) is beginning her eleventh season as a resident stage manager at TheatreWorks. During that time she has stage managed 40 productions, including the musicals A Civil War Christmas; Caroline, or Change; Merrily We Roll Along; Vanities: A New Musical; Baby Taj; Striking 12; A Little Princess; Memphis; Ragtime; Pacific Overtures (2001); Kept; and Floyd Collins. Ms. Muench graduated from the University of Evansville in Indiana with a BS in technical theatre, and is a proud member of Equity.
JOSHUA M. ROSE* (Assistant Stage Manager) is returning for his twenty-first show in his sixth season with TheatreWorks, having most recently been the Equity Assistant Stage Manager for To Kill a Mockingbird; Daddy Long Legs (world premiere); A Civil War Christmas; Tinyard Hill (world premiere); Distracted; Twentieth Century; Grey Gardens; and Snapshots.  Recently, he was also the Equity Stage Manager for Groundswell and Splitting Infinity at San Jose Repertory Theatre. Mr. Rose has also worked with A Contemporary Theatre, Tacoma Actors’ Guild, Seattle Children’s Theatre, The Fifth Avenue, Village Theatre, On the Boards, Fulton Opera House, Mount Washington Valley Theatre Company, Minnesota Repertory Theatre, and Minnesota Festival Theatre. He received his BFA in Stage Management and Theatre Technology from the University of Minnesota Duluth and is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.
VICKIE ROZELL (Dramaturg) has been TheatreWorks’ resident dramaturg for nine years, working on over sixty productions, including as co-director of Doubt, Arcadia, and Wrong for Each Other, associate director/dramaturg on Yellow Face; Caroline, or Change; Emma; M Butterfly; Into the Woods; Dolly West’s Kitchen; Jane Eyre; Ragtime; Pacific Overtures; and Side Show; and dramaturg on Baby Taj, Vincent in Brixton, Violet, Memphis, and many others. She has directed Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Picnic (Palo Alto Players), W;t (Bus Barn Stage Company), The Vagina Monologues (The California Theatre) and Proof (City Lights Theatre Company), taught at Ohlone and Foothill Colleges, and is a member of the West Coast Directors Lab. Ms. Rozell has BAs in English and Psychology from Stanford University and her  MFA in directing from the University of California.
TED SPERLING (Additional Orchestrations) directed TheatreWorks’ production of Striking 12 as well as the US premiere of Peter Pan and Wendy, and Michael John LaChiusa’s R shomon at Williamstown Theatre Festival. He won the 2005 Tony and Drama Desk Awards (with Adam Guettel and Bruce Coughlin) for orchestrations of The Light in the Piazza, for which he was also music director. Other Broadway credits as music director/conductor/ pianist include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Angels in America, My Favorite Year, Falsettos, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Les Misérables, and Sunday in the Park with George. Off-Broadway credits as music director include A Man of No Importance, Wise Guys, Saturn Returns, Floyd Collins, Falsettoland, and Romance in Hard Times. Mr. Sperling was also an original cast member of the Broadway musical Titanic.
MIKE WARD (Associate Director/Choreographer) is celebrating his 12th TheatreWorks production. Other favorites: Grey Gardens, Snapshots; Vanities, A New Musical; and My Ántonia. Nominated for the Ockrent Fellowship for Broadway Theatre, and Bay Area Theatre Critics’ Circle Award (Best Director), Mr. Ward is an alumnus of both the Lincoln Center Theater and West Coast Directors Labs. He’s collaborated on projects with George Furth, Edward Albee, and Elaine May and been involved in projects at American Conservatory Theater, Old Globe Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, California Musical Theatre, Music Circus, San Jose Repertory Theatre, O’Neill Foundation, Killing My Lobster and Magic Theatre, where he was an Artistic Associate for three years. He is currently working on Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party at USF (Director). He is a member of Theatre Bay Area and SDC, the union for Stage Directors & Choreographers. Thanks to Daniel & Michael.
J.B. Wilson (Set Design) previously designed TheatreWorks’ Yellow Face; Grey Gardens; Caroline or Change; Third; Into the Woods; Ragtime; Cabaret; The Secret Garden; The World Goes ’Round; Ah, Wilderness!; Marvin’s Room; Les Liaisons Dangereuses; Once On this Island; and Miami Lights. During the past thirty years, Wilson has designed more than two hundred stage productions, which have appeared on the stages of national venues as well as many small and large stages in the Bay Area, and he is grateful to have been honored with numerous awards for his work. Mr. Wilson is a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University School of Drama, a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829, and was Assistant Professor for nine years at Stanford before joining the faculty of San Francisco State University’s Department of Theatre Arts.

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States