Costume drama: Speakeasy's "The Light in the Piazza"

There's no better place to fall in love than Florence, Italy, especially the romantic version of it seen in the hit Broadway musical The Light in the Piazza. Speakeasy Stage brings the tale of young love to the Boston Center for the Arts this weekend, with an elegant staging that's brought down to earth, in part, by the meticulous costumes of Charles Schoonmaker.

"Call me Chip," says Schoonmaker as we make our way through the backstage of the BCA. He smiles and adds, "I'm only Charles professionally." He must get called Charles a lot; his 20-year career as a designer includes work in theater and dance, and he's earned two Emmy awards for his work on As The World Turns and Another World.

Ensconced in the green room, Schoonmaker shows me his concept sketches for The Light in the Piazza, and discusses the particular challenges of the Speakeasy production.

"I'm glad, now, that I didn't see the Broadway production," he says. "Because our challenge is: how do we do another version, in a smaller way."

Instead of trying to match a Broadway budget for marble and terrazzo, the Speakeasy show takes a charmingly abstract approach. The overall design concept is inspired by the sketchbook of Clara, the young American artist who falls for a handsome Italian while on vacation; her artwork will come to life before the audience.

A background in the very specific milieu of soap operas might not sound like the right qualifications for this conceptual approach. In fact this is Schoonmaker's favorite kind of design challenge, and on he's been tackling since his professional job designing dance costumes for the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival.

"I love doing dance design," he says. "It's a really creative way of expressing. On soaps, there's not a big gamut of types, while in dance there's an abstract element. You try to figure out how to help the choreographer create this vision, and it might not be about character. It might be about emotion or simply movement."

Schoonmaker's real challenge is in walking the line between reality and abstraction. All of the costumes in the show, which is set in the 1950s, are vintage pieces found in thrift stores across the country. "Even before I met the cast," he reveals, "I started looking in thrift stores in Seattle, Montreal, wherever I was traveling. It's been a nationwide search!"

Although it's relatively easy to find clothes from the 1950s, finding ones that mesh with Susan Zeeman Rogers's set design and the vision of director Scott Edmiston, is a taller order.

"I want the clothes to have a little bit of a watercolor feeling," Schoonmaker explains. "But because they're real clothes from the vintage market, that's tough to do. So I want to use reflective fabrics that take light in a certain way. Certain prints look more like watercolors, and certain colors. I'm using a lot of warm colors that are going to look really good on Susan's set."

Hailing from Northport, New York, Schoonmaker may have been born under a theatrical star; his hometown also produced Broadway diva Patti Lupone. By high school, he was already involved with school plays. "I was shy and never wanted to be on stage," he recalls. "But I had all these different ideas and I worked behind the scenes."

It wasn't until college that Schoonmaker realized that all his passions - "I was interested in clothes, history, painting and drawing" - could come together with a degree in design. What was the eureka moment? "I fell in with a bad crowd," he laughs. "The theater department!" Despite not knowing how to sew, he took a job in the costume department and has been sewing ever since.

Appropriately enough, it was a love story that made it possible for Schoonmaker to work on this show. After enduring six years of a long-distance relationship, shuttling between New York and Boston several weekends a month, Schoonmaker finally moved to the South End three years ago to live with his partner, Neal Kane, president of the South End based communication firm Libretto.

"It was an adjustment," Schoonmaker chuckles, "but I feel like the South End is like the West Village. Except the restaurants don't stay open late enough." Snack problems aside, it seems he couldn't be happier sharing his life with Kane, teaching design at Brandeis, and working with the theater community of greater Boston.

"Boston has a fantastic theater scene, and it's very welcoming," he says. "The Calderwood Pavilion reminds me of the Publick Theater, back in New York, with different things going on in the different spaces, and lots of energy."

The Light in the Piazza plays at the Boston Center for the Arts from Sept. 19 - Oct. 18. Tickets $30-$54. For more information visit www.speakeasystage.com or call 617.933.8600.