2015 SEASON

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sharon Eberson

August 23, 2015

The dog days of summer in Pittsburgh are bringing the heat, both outdoors and onstage at the New Hazlett Theater, where “The Light in the Piazza” is burning with the passion of fresh-faced and veteran actors feasting on a bounty of juicy roles.

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Get ready to say a warm benvenuto to Joshua Grosso, the rising senior at Carnegie Mellon University who won the 2012 Jimmy Award as the top male in the national high school musical theater competition. He is perfectly cast as Fabrizio, a 20-year-old Italian overcome by first love. The young actor posses a magnetic energy and a tenor to make young girls like Clara, the object of Fabrizio’s affections, swoon.

Tribune Review, Alice T. Carter

August 24, 2016

“The Light in the Piazza” is a musical drama that can't quite make up its mind.

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When Becki Toth's Margaret is singing near-arias, such as “Dividing Day” or “Fable,” or when Antoinia Botti-Lodovico's Franca lends her full voice to “The Joy You Feel,” it's an opera.

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But when the young lovers Fabrizio and Clara, played by Joshua Grosso and Lindsay Bayer, perform the duets “Passeggiata” and “Say it Somehow,” it feels like a traditional musical about young lovers.

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Maybe it's best not to worry over definitions and boundaries, but just give ourselves over to the truly lovely performances in this lovingly created production from Front Porch Theatricals.

Pittsburgh in the Round, Isaac Crow

August 25, 2015

Is anyone ever really prepared for love? That is the question asked by The Light in the Piazza, a musical about a mother trying to protect her daughter from the complexities of falling in love. The daughter has some “special circumstances” that the mother is concerned about, but is she fighting a losing battle against one of the strongest feelings known to man? This tale unfolds at the New Hazlett as Front Porch Theatricals premieres their second show of the season.

Broadway World, Greg Kerestan

September 02, 2015

One of the finer points of the critic's job, which can lead to pleasures or torments depending on situation, is the ability to separate one's critique of the written material from one's critique of the performance and production itself. When I initially heard that a local theatre was doing The Light in the Piazza, my first instinct had been to avoid it entirely. Seeing the Broadway production left me cold, and performing large segments of the show's score in vocal recitals through my college years did nothing to change my mind. You can say my tastes run towards the middlebrow, and you might be partially right, but I always found Adam Guettel's musical romance a dry, dour exercise in compositional skill over heart. Not much light in that particular Piazza, you might say. Thankfully, local director Stephen Santa has a knack for bringing humanity and joy to tricky pieces of modernist musical theatre (see also his production of Next to Normal last spring), and he has again worked his magic in the Pittsburgh area. I may not particularly like The Light in the Piazza as a work on its own, but I genuinely loved the Front Porch Theatricals production, showcased in the New Hazlett Theatre.

'Burgh Vivant, Brian Edward

August 24, 2015

Lonnie The Theatre Lady and Mike “Buzz” Buzzelli are back on ‘Burgh Vivant for cocktail hour to chat about THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA from Front Porch Theatricals, playing through August 30, 2015. www.frontporchpgh.com

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sharon Eberson

August 20, 2015

Front Porch Theatricals didn’t go easy on itself when it decided to add a second musical to its usual summertime splash.

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First up in May was “The Last Five Years,” a songfest with a cast of two. Coming up next is the challenging “The Light in the Piazza,” a drama of moral and musical complexity and a cast of 12.

Tribune Review, Alice T. Carter

August 19, 2016

Stephen Santa likes to direct shows that offer challenges. “You always want to find a project that is challenging, because, as an artist, you always want to grow,” he says.

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That's a large part of why he agreed to direct Front Porch Theatricals' “A Light in the Piazza,” which opens Aug. 21 at the New Hazlett Theater on the North Side. It's a musical about young people falling in love set in Rome and Florence in 1953.