College Light Opera Company (CLOC) will open for its 58th season on Tuesday, June 23. The company’s intensive nine-week season includes a diverse lineup, from concept musicals to traditional Broadway shows, Gilbert and Sullivan, operetta and more.
“At its core, CLOC is an educational institution,” Executive and Artistic Director Mark Pearson said, referring to the college students who not only come to Falmouth from across the country to perform but also to hone their business skills, work in costuming, perform in the orchestra, run the concession stand and essentially engage in all the tasks necessary to operate a theater.
Traditionally, the company has performed two Gilbert and Sullivan shows per season; this year, it will produce only one: the opening production, “The Sorcerer,” one of the duo’s earliest collaborations.
Pearson said the company isn’t switching to always performing just one Gilbert and Sullivan production per season, but that staging just one in 2026 is an effort “to keep them fresh and interesting.”
Pearson said Gilbert and Sullivan shows are well-suited for early in the season because their format provides “great training material for the students.”
“They are compartmental,” Pearson said. “The chorus is doing specific ‘chorus’ things and the leads are doing specific ‘lead’ things, so when you have new stage managers and a new team, it’s a good way for them to get their footing on how we put up a show at CLOC.”
Pearson described Gilbert and Sullivan as “core DNA” for CLOC. “We love doing them,” he said. Calling “The Sorcerer” exciting in that it’s the first show, before ‘HMS Pinafore’ and ‘Mikado,’ where Gilbert and Sullivan were really launched onto the stage. It’s an interesting show because in it you see prototypes of some of the characters that will become iconic in the Gilbert and Sullivan canon.”
“The Sorcerer” will open on Tuesday, June 23, and run through Saturday, June 27.
The second show of the season, the Tony Award-winning “1776,” will open on Tuesday, June 30, and run through Saturday, July 4. Pearson noted that the show is being performed “for obvious reasons” and that it is a premiere for the company.
“It’s a show I love,” Pearson said. “The challenge of doing it at CLOC in the past was the perceived wisdom that it had to be all men, but the recent Broadway revival, which featured all women, proves that it doesn’t have to be.”
Pearson said the company is taking a middle-of-the-road approach to gender roles in the production, adding that it was interesting to note that “1776” opened on Broadway in 1969, which was a politically divisive time because of the Vietnam War. “I think now is an interesting time to revisit it,” he said.
Disney’s “Frozen,” running from Tuesday to Saturday, July 7 through 11, is another CLOC premiere.
“What’s interesting about ‘Frozen’ as a stage play,” Pearson said, “is that there’s a lot of music in it that’s not in the movie. If you are familiar with the movie, it’s very much like the movie, but there’s a lot of other great material that was written for it.”
Pearson noted that an aspect of “Frozen” he especially appreciates is that even though it’s a fairytale, “it centers around sibling love and not romantic love.”
Pearson described “The Secret Garden,” which opens on Tuesday, July 14, as one of several musicals from the 1990s that were based on books. Other literary musicals from that decade include “Jekyll & Hyde,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and “Once on This Island.”
“‘The Secret Garden’ has a big, lush score, and we’ll be able to highlight some child performers. It’s a great piece,” Pearson said.
Opening on Tuesday, July 21, Sigmund Romberg’s operetta, “The Student Price,” is a staple of the CLOC canon. “It’s a big show, I think it’s his best score,” Pearson said.
In terms of plot, Pearson said, “I always find it fascinating because the love story is really a friendship story.”
The story revolves around young Prince Karl, enrolled incognito at Heidelberg University, who falls in love with a waitress named Kathie. Memorable songs include “Golden Days,” “Deep in My Heart Dear” and the rousing “Drinking Song.” “The Student Prince” was the longest-running Broadway show of the 1920s.
Pearson said he enjoys the challenge of teaching operettas to the company, noting, “What is light opera and what is operetta? It’s hard to pin down and then when you do, there are subgenres within them. ‘Sorcerer’ and ‘Student Prince’ are both operettas, but they are not apples and apples. Gilbert and Sullivan and British opera are very different from American operetta, which is also very different from European operetta.
“What I love about American operetta is that you can see the DNA of what will become the American musical. The lushness that you see in Romberg and ‘The Student Prince’ carries right into Rodgers and Hammerstein, along with some of the structure; romantic leads and comic secondary characters; all of those pieces are in there bubbling around. There are moments when it feels like a musical and then it feels like an opera.
In terms of “The Student Prince,” Pearson said the show has “big, fun, flashy moments that all of a sudden give way to small, beautiful, intimate scenes. It can hold both worlds.”
Opening on Tuesday, July 28, Stephen Schwartz’s “Pippin” also features a young prince on the road to self-discovery, though the two shows are wildly different in just about every way.
Opening on Broadway in 1972, “Pippin” featured choreography by the legendary Bob Fosse and memorable songs such as “Magic To Do,” “Corner of the Sky,” “Simple Joys” and “Morning Glow.” Ben Vereen won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Leading Player in the original production, with Patina Miller also winning a Tony for the same role in the 2013 revival.
Opening on Tuesday. August 4, “Light in the Piazza” is another CLOC premiere. The show is fairly new, having been performed on Broadway in 2005. Music and lyrics are by Adam Guettel, the grandson of composer Richard Rodgers. “I consider it an operetta, it has a beautiful score and beautiful singing,” Pearson said, adding, “It’s unconventional, not your classic love story, but very poignant. I’m very excited about it.”
“The Drowsy Chaperone” is a repeat musical for CLOC, one that Pearson called “campy fun,” adding that it is completely different from “Light in the Piazza” even though the two opened on Broadway within a year of each other. Billed as “a musical within a comedy,” the show will open on Tuesday, August 11.
The season will end with Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady,” opening on Tuesday, August 18.
Based on George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion,” the show is beloved for songs such as “Get Me To The Church On Time,” “On The Street Where You Live,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” and “With A Little Bit Of Luck.”
“It’s a classic anywhere, but especially at CLOC it fits really well into how the orchestra works,” said Pearson.
In addition to its nine-performance season, CLOC will again host pre-show talks on Friday nights before the 7:30 PM curtain. The talks are free and will take place at Highfield Hall. The company will also perform four free orchestra concerts at the West Falmouth Library during the summer.
Pearson said the company hopes to again partner with the Cape Cod Baseball League. Last year, members of the company performed the national anthem at several Falmouth Commodores games. “That’s always fun when it works into our schedule,” Pearson said.
CLOC will perform this weekend as part of Arts Alive and again on the lawn of the Falmouth Public Library for a free concert on Saturday, July 4.
Full-season and five-show, flex-season tickets are on sale now. Single tickets will go on sale on Monday, June 15.
“When we put a season together, it’s also a curriculum,” Pearson said, “not only for the students but for the audience. We hope that theater is an opportunity for people to expand their horizons and see things that you wouldn’t see somewhere else or that you might not think to see.”
“We are always trying to get more people into full-season subscriptions because it’s more security for us. It gives us more freedom with programming,” Pearson said.
“What I love about a nine-show season subscription is that a) there’s some trust there, which is great. You trust us. And b) it’s like going to the gym—you’re forcing yourself to do something, see something, you might not normally see. For example, you might say, ‘I wouldn’t normally go see ‘The Student Prince,’ but I’ve already got the ticket and then you go and hopefully you think, ‘Wow, that was great.’ When we put a season together, we’re thinking about the students, but we’re also thinking about the audience. “I know you may not have heard of, say, ‘A Light In the Piazza,’ but trust me, you’re going to enjoy it.”
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