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Ohio Light Opera opens 47th season with My Fair Lady, directed by Jacob Allen

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by Mike Telin

When Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady debuted on Broadway in 1956, it was an instant success — winning six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Indeed, the story about Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who is magically transformed into a lady by the phonetics professor Henry Higgins, is filled with songs that will keep you humming for days.

On Saturday, June 13 at 2:00 pm in the College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre, Ohio Light Opera will open their 47th season with the iconic musical. Jacob Allen directs and Michael Borowitz conducts the OLO Orchestra. My Fair Lady runs in rep through August 2. Tickets are available online. View a season calendar here.

I caught up with Jacob Allen by phone and began our conversation by asking him about his history with the musical.

[Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Patience, or Bunthorne’s Bride (July 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Of all the sacred Victorian oxen William Shenk Gilbert and Arthur Seymour Sullivan set out to gore in their fourteen Savoy Operas, their satire of the Aesthetic Movement and its medieval values is one of their cleverest.

Patience (1890) lampoons the literary excesses of the aesthetes and their followers with similar affectations of its own, and the G&S veterans of Ohio Light Opera miss few opportunities to demonstrate their individual virtuosity.

I saw the opening performance, a matinee, at Freedlander Theater at The College of Wooster on July 2. The production was expertly directed by veteran company member Julie Wright Costa, and choreographed by Spencer Reese, with Wilson Southerland conducting the fine-sounding OLO Orchestra. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: George & Ira Gershwin’s Tip-Toes (June 26)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On a sunny Thursday afternoon in Wooster on June 26, Ohio Light Opera’s revival of the Gershwin brothers’ Tip-Toes (1925) made its premiere during a carefree two hours at the College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre.

Director Jacob Allen embraced the show’s silliness — mistaken identities, romantic mix-ups, and a heroine with amnesia — while keeping the action kinetic and the comedy light on its feetThe production succeeds due to excellent staging and choreography, but also thanks to sharp acting, nimble dancing, heartfelt singing, and general razzle-dazzle. Proof that even the more neglected musicals of the Jazz Age can still charm a modern audience. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon (June 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1947 Brigadoon owes much of its popularity to the familiarity of its music — and people who have never seen the show can find themselves carrying tunes like “The Heather on the Hill,” “Come to Me, Bend to me, ”and “Almost Like Being in Love” around in their ears, not knowing where they came from.

Equally as compelling are its Scottish Highland dances, which are numerous,  authentic, and as one commentator noted in a review of Brigadoon’s debut, so well-integrated into the plot that ‘it is impossible to say where the music and dancing leave off and the story begins.’

Engagingly directed by Jacob Allen, with lively choreography by Spencer Reese, and Wilson Southerland leading the excellent OLO Orchestra, Ohio Light Opera’s alluring production of Brigadoon opened on June 19 in Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: a group chat about Brigadoon

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by Daniel Hathaway & Mike Telin

Immediately following Ohio Light Opera’s wonderful opening performance of Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Brigadoon on June 19, we had the opportunity to sit down at The College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre with director Jacob Allen, conductor Wilson Southerland, choreographer and cast member Spencer Reese, and cast members Maggie Langhorne and Jack Murphy to talk about the production.

CC: Great job, everyone! Jacob, please share your thoughts about the show.  [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: everything free and easy at Me And My Girl (June 20)

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by Stephanie Manning

Not only is it a challenge to walk out of Me and My Girl without the music stuck in your head, it’s also a challenge to pick which of the many songs you might be humming.

The charming, feel-good 1937 musical — with music by Noel Gay and book/lyrics by Douglas Furger & L. Arthur Rose — may not be much of a household name these days. But after its original success in London’s West End, a revised book by Stephen Frey and Mike Ockrent in the 1980s made the show a huge hit across the pond on Broadway. And the Ohio Light Opera’s dazzling premiere makes it easy to see why.

[Read more…]

Jacob Allen on Ohio Light Opera’s 2024 season

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by Mike Telin

One of the neat things about a summer light opera festival is that there is always a family atmosphere. Ohio Light Opera is a perfect example of that, especially when it comes to associate artistic director Jacob Allen and his relationship with the company. 2024 marks Allen’s 18th season — and his sixth position within OLO after he started out as a young artist performer.

Allen is directing two shows this season: Guys and Dolls and Me and My Girl, the latter of which opens on Thursday, June 20 at 2:00 pm at Freedlander Theatre.

The show includes music by Noel Gay and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose. Tickets are available online.

I caught up with Allen by phone to talk about the two shows he’s directing — and his history with the company.

[Read more…]

Steven Daigle previews the first three shows of Ohio Light Opera’s 2024 season

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, June 8 at 7:30 pm, Ohio Light Opera will launch its 2024 season with the 1937 hit musical Guys and Dolls. The show is the first of six titles that will run in repertory through July 28 at the College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre. Tickets for all performances are available online.

“At some level, we’ve already worked on all six of the shows,” OLO artistic director Steven Daigle said by telephone during a rehearsal break last weekend. “We’re getting to know the singers better now that we’ve had more time to work with them, and we’re excited — it’s going to be a really great company.”

Based on two short stories by Damon Runyon, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, Guys and Dolls follows a pair of big city gamblers and the women who are in love with them.

Daigle noted that OLO has been staging what he called “Golden Age Musicals” for the past eight to ten years. “We’re now at a point where we have already produced most of them. And when we were tracking some of the blockbusters, Guys and Dolls just came up as a fun show. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera:
H.M.S. Pinafore, or 
The Lass That Loved a Sailor (June 29)

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by Daniel Hathaway

It’s been a good thing for the creative team of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Seymour Sullivan that Victorian England was rife with unqualified public officials, rigid class distinctions, and social inequality. What would the plot of H.M.S. Pinafore, one of their most popular Savoy Operas, have been like without the opportunity to lampoon such functionaries as W. H. Smith, a politician with no nautical experience, by portraying him as Sir Joseph Porter, the First Lord of the Admiralty? His advice:

[Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: 
No, No, Nanette! (June 24)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When the Freedlander Theatre grand drape rose for the first No, No, Nanette! curtain call on Saturday afternoon in Wooster, it revealed only the tap dancing feet of the excellent Ohio Light Opera cast. That cleverly validated both stage director Steven A. Daigle’s characterization of the 1925 hit musical as “a dancing show” and choreographer Spencer Reese’s genius in getting an entire stage full of actors to tap and create a wonderful din with their feet during several production numbers.

[Read more…]

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