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Ohio Light Opera: Hello, Dolly! (June 23)

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by Daniel Hathaway

On June 23, Ohio Light Opera rang up the curtain on the second production of its 43rd season in Freedlander Theatre at The College of Wooster. Following on the heels of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, the company’s first-ever staging of Hello, Dolly! continued the inclusion of Broadway in OLO’s repertoire.

The story line has its origin in an 1855 play and an 1842 farce that Thornton Wilder mined for his 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers. When that turned out to be a flop, in 1954 Wilder made the crucial decision to re-center the show around the character of the legendary marriage broker Dolly Gallagher Levi and renamed it The Matchmaker. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Perchance to Dream (July 24)

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by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

It’s not often that one encounters a musical theater piece with book, lyrics and score all written by the same person. The Welsh genius Ivor Novello (nom de plume for David Ivor Davies) is one example of such a super-talented creator. Just the concept of such a thing is almost overwhelming, until you see his Perchance to Dream brought to life as the final production of Ohio Light Opera’s 2019 season. It sparkles and glitters and will not easily be banished from your memory bank. Yet another oddity about this production: the story line is very close to a time-travel romance. However, Londoners do know good theater when they see it. This one ran for 1,020 performances, roughly 2½ years after opening on April 21, 1945. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Into the Woods (June 27)

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by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

There’s a wise old saying: be careful what you wish for — you might just get it. And if that happens, then what do you do? That could well be the theme of Into the Woods, now in rep at Ohio Light Opera through August 9. Once upon a time, Stephen Sondheim wrote lyrics for music that had been composed by others: among them were the classics West Side Story and Gypsy. At some point, he must have realized that writing the music might be more fun. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera’s first four shows include old favorites and a Kern revival from 1917

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by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

OLO-Mikado

For Wooster’s Ohio Light Opera, it isn’t enough simply to choose seven great examples of lyric theater to comprise a season. No, it takes months, sometimes years to pull together all the pieces of the puzzle in order to put the very best production of each show on the stage of Freedlander Theater.

Cole Porter’s 1948 masterpiece Kiss Me, Kate will open OLO’s 38th season on Saturday, June 18 at 7:30 pm. As a play within a play, it looks back to Shakespeare, of course, and to The Taming of the Shrew. But it also looks forward to more modern days, with its consideration of women’s lib — recognizing Lilli as an equal participant in the story. First seen in the 1940s, it was Porter’s love letter to the theater, not only to the actors, dancers, and musicians, but also to the audiences who came to see it. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera 37th season: a roundtable discussion with the stage directors

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by Kelly Ferjutz, Special to ClevelandClassical

SteveSteven Daigle (left) has been at the helm of Ohio Light Opera since 1999. But not even a Superman could successfully choose and direct all seven full-scale productions in the eight-week summer season at The College of Wooster. This season, Daigle will be in charge of four of the seven shows, and three members of his company will each direct one.

I sat down with Daigle, associate director Julie Wright Costa, principal guest director Ted Christopher, and Jacob Allen — all four of whom are teachers specializing in the lyric theater tradition — to ask questions about their careers and their lives at OLO.

Kelly Ferjutz: Could you each share your thoughts about shows you’re directing this season?

Steven Daigle: I’m directing four of the seven productions. Our repertory is shifting in the direction of a musical theater, which has a different emphasis than operetta. They all have their difficulties, but the biggest one is time constraints — there’s a lot to do after choosing a piece before you present it to the audience. Building sets is time-consuming and expensive. We’re trying to economize where possible, without hurting our quality. Maybe we build less complex sets at times. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Brigadoon opening performance (June 13)

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by Kelly Ferjutz, Special to ClevelandClassical

DanceWhen Broadway composer Frederick Loewe and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner first proposed a musical based on the legend of Brigadoon, it was suggested that they change its setting from Scotland to the US. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and here we are 68 years later with a sparkling production of Brigadoon that opened the Ohio Light Opera 2015 season last Saturday evening, and will run in repertory through August 7. (Photo: Benjamin Krumreig as Charlie and Emily Hagens as Jean).

[Read more…]

Review: My Fair Lady at Ohio Light Opera (July 22)

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by Kelly Ferjutz, Special to ClevelandClassical

MFL1-(Matt-Dilyard)

“The majesty and grandeur of the English language,” as Henry Higgins put it to Eliza Doolittle, is on glorious display in My Fair Lady, currently on the boards at Ohio Light Opera in Wooster. In a word, this production is magnificent. I’d say perfect, but someone would be sure to quibble. But still, it must be more difficult to produce a stellar version of what is arguably the ‘world’s most popular musical’ than to do a fabulous version of something that no one has ever seen or heard until that very moment. (One can easily confirm this popularity by the number of audience members singing or humming along, under their breath, so to speak, right along with the performers.) [Read more…]

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