Wagner College's theater program stages The Light in the Piazza for two weekends this month, with nine performances from Thursday, November 12, through Sunday, November 22, in Main Hall on the Grymes Hill campus.

The musical has a book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, and Theresa McCarthy directs the Wagner production. It is based on a 1962 novel by Elizabeth Spencer.

The show

The Light in the Piazza follows an American tourist and her daughter on a summer trip to Florence, where the daughter falls for a young Florentine man. Much of the drama sits with the mother, who has to decide how much to tell about her daughter's past as the romance moves faster than she expected.

The show had its world premiere at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle in June 2003, played the Goodman in Chicago in 2004, and opened on Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater in 2005.

The rest of the month at Wagner

For Staten Island residents, the production is a full musical staged on the island itself, with no ferry ride to Manhattan required. The college stages a season of musicals and plays each year in Main Hall and in its smaller Stage One space, where Melanie Marnich's play These Shining Lives is also on the calendar this month.

Performance schedule

  • Thursday, November 12, at 8 p.m.
  • Friday, November 13, at 8 p.m.
  • Saturday, November 14, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
  • Thursday, November 19, at 8 p.m.
  • Friday, November 20, at 8 p.m.
  • Saturday, November 21, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
  • Sunday, November 22, at 2 p.m.

How to go

Main Hall is on the Wagner College campus at One Campus Road on Grymes Hill, Staten Island. Tickets are sold through the college's performing arts site, which also lists prices and accessibility information. From Manhattan, the campus is a short bus or car ride from the St. George Ferry Terminal; check the college's site for directions and parking before you go.

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