Tony Loves Piazza

The musical “Light in the Piazza,” which had its premiere at Seattle's Intiman Theatre in 2003, moved on to Chicago, then Broadway, and bagged six Tonys last night. The New York Times notes it was the biggest single winner of the evening:

The show, produced by the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater, took six awards, sweeping the musical design categories and winning for its ambitious, complex score by Adam Guettel and the performance of its leading lady, Victoria Clark. "Piazza" won Tonys for costumes (by Catherine Zuber), lights (Christopher Akerlind), sets (Michael Yeargan) and orchestrations (Mr. Guettel, Ted Sperling and Bruce Coughlin) before winning one of the evening's most contested prizes, best score.

All of which makes it interesting that “Piazza” was not the pick of the local press when they considered its appeal to the great unwashed masses. Seattle Weekly liked it and the Stranger's Josh Feit mustered a “worth seeing,” it's true, but the P-I's Joe Adcock got one leg over the fence and stayed there:

It is valuable as art. But its stature as a life-enhancing, life-illuminating creation with universal appeal is slight.

While over at the Seattle Times, Misha Berson surmised that the show's chamber-opera feel might just doom it: This is a musical unlikely to fit into Broadway's current, gaudily commercial climate of revivals and pop-rock romps.

Seattlest is not sure what prompts critics to make “for the ages” pronouncements the morning after seeing a new show, especially with the Google cache around. We were at the premiere and we enjoyed ourselves. Sounds like the Tony voters did, too.