With her family away at the 1965 state fair, Francesca Johnson looks forward to a rare four days alone on her Iowa farm. But when ruggedly handsome National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid pulls into her driveway seeking directions, what happens in those four days may very well alter the course of Francesca's life. Based on the best-selling novel, and developed by a Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning creative team, this new musical captures the lyrical expanse of America's heartland along with the yearning entangled in the eternal question, 'What if...?'"
The Bridges of Madison County stars four-time Tony Award nominee Kelli O'Hara (South Pacific, The Pajama Game) and Steven Pasquale (Rescue Me, reasons to be pretty). It features a score by Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Last Five Years) and a libretto by Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman (The Color Purple, The Secret Garden). It will be directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher (The Light in the Piazza, South Pacific), who reunites with his celebrated Tony Award-winning South Pacific design team, including scenic designer Michael Yeargan, costume designer Catherine Zuber, and lighting designer, Donald Holder. Sound Design is by Jon Weston (How to Succeed..., The Color Purple).
'The Bridges of Madison County' had only one path to artistic success: Its two lovers had to gain the empathy - a tear, a lump in the throat - of the audience. Mission, I would definitely say, accomplished.
Here we have a musical which in its finest moments offers the sort of robustly romantic Broadway-style singing--and writing--that brings to mind such treasures as Carousel and The Most Happy Fella. Those shows, when mounted properly, offer emotional peaks and climaxes so effective that there's not a dry eye in the house. In Bridges of Madison County, when romance goes asunder and the sympathetic lovers are forced apart, we sit there stonefaced, with nary a wet eye in the house. At least, not where I was sitting. You enjoy the wonderful performances and the numerous soaring ballads, frustrated that this exceptional work isn't contained in a more workable musical.
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