College Light Opera Company (CLOC) will open for its 58th season on Tuesday, June 23. The company\u2019s intensive nine-week season includes a diverse lineup, from concept musicals to traditional Broadway shows, Gilbert and Sullivan, operetta and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cAt 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Traditionally, the company has performed two Gilbert and Sullivan shows per season; this year, it will produce only one: the opening production, \u201cThe Sorcerer,\u201d one of the duo\u2019s earliest collaborations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Pearson said the company isn\u2019t switching to always performing just one Gilbert and Sullivan production per season, but that staging just one in 2026 is an effort \u201cto keep them fresh and interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Pearson said Gilbert and Sullivan shows are well-suited for early in the season because their format provides \u201cgreat training material for the students.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThey are compartmental,\u201d Pearson said. \u201cThe chorus is doing specific \u2018chorus\u2019 things and the leads are doing specific \u2018lead\u2019 things, so when you have new stage managers and a new team, it\u2019s a good way for them to get their footing on how we put up a show at CLOC.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Pearson described Gilbert and Sullivan as \u201ccore DNA\u201d for CLOC. “We love doing them,\u201d he said. Calling \u201cThe Sorcerer\u201d exciting in that it\u2019s the first show, before \u2018HMS Pinafore\u2019 and \u2018Mikado,\u2019 where Gilbert and Sullivan were really launched onto the stage. It\u2019s an interesting show because in it you see prototypes of some of the characters that will become iconic in the Gilbert and Sullivan canon.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe Sorcerer\u201d will open on Tuesday, June 23, and run through Saturday, June 27.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The second show of the season, the Tony Award-winning \u201c1776,\u201d will open on Tuesday, June 30, and run through Saturday, July 4. Pearson noted that the show is being performed \u201cfor obvious reasons\u201d and that it is a premiere for the company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a show I love,\u201d Pearson said. \u201cThe 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\u2019t have to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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 \u201c1776\u201d opened on Broadway in 1969, which was a politically divisive time because of the Vietnam War. \u201cI think now is an interesting time to revisit it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Disney’s \u201cFrozen,\u201d running from Tuesday to Saturday, July 7 through 11, is another CLOC premiere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s interesting about \u2018Frozen\u2019 as a stage play,\u201d Pearson said, \u201cis that there\u2019s a lot of music in it that\u2019s not in the movie. If you are familiar with the movie, it\u2019s very much like the movie, but there\u2019s a lot of other great material that was written for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Pearson noted that an aspect of \u201cFrozen\u201d he especially appreciates is that even though it\u2019s a fairytale, \u201cit centers around sibling love and not romantic love.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Pearson described \u201cThe Secret Garden,\u201d 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 \u201cJekyll & Hyde,\u201d \u201cKiss of the Spider Woman\u201d and \u201cOnce on This Island.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201c\u2018The Secret Garden\u2019 has a big, lush score, and we\u2019ll be able to highlight some child performers. It\u2019s a great piece,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Opening on Tuesday, July 21, Sigmund Romberg\u2019s operetta, \u201cThe Student Price,\u201d is a staple of the CLOC canon. \u201cIt\u2019s a big show, I think it\u2019s his best score,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In terms of plot, Pearson said, \u201cI always find it fascinating because the love story is really a friendship story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The story revolves around young Prince Karl, enrolled incognito at Heidelberg University, who falls in love with a waitress named Kathie. Memorable songs include \u201cGolden Days,\u201d \u201cDeep in My Heart Dear\u201d and the rousing \u201cDrinking Song.\u201d \u201cThe Student Prince\u201d was the longest-running Broadway show of the 1920s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Pearson said he enjoys the challenge of teaching operettas to the company, noting, \u201cWhat is light opera and what is operetta? It\u2019s hard to pin down and then when you do, there are subgenres within them. \u2018Sorcerer\u2019 and \u2018Student Prince\u2019 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat 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 \u2018The Student Prince\u2019 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In terms of \u201cThe Student Prince,\u201d Pearson said the show has \u201cbig, fun, flashy moments that all of a sudden give way to small, beautiful, intimate scenes. It can hold both worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Opening on Tuesday, July 28, Stephen Schwartz\u2019s \u201cPippin\u201d also features a young prince on the road to self-discovery, though the two shows are wildly different in just about every way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Opening on Broadway in 1972, \u201cPippin\u201d featured choreography by the legendary Bob Fosse and memorable songs such as \u201cMagic To Do,\u201d \u201cCorner of the Sky,\u201d \u201cSimple Joys\u201d and \u201cMorning Glow.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Opening on Tuesday. August 4, \u201cLight in the Piazza\u201d 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. \u201cI consider it an operetta, it has a beautiful score and beautiful singing,\u201d Pearson said, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s unconventional, not your classic love story, but very poignant. I\u2019m very excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe Drowsy Chaperone\u201d is a repeat musical for CLOC, one that Pearson called \u201ccampy fun,\u201d adding that it is completely different from “Light in the Piazza\u201d even though the two opened on Broadway within a year of each other. Billed as \u201ca musical within a comedy,\u201d the show will open on Tuesday, August 11.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The season will end with Lerner and Loewe\u2019s \u201cMy Fair Lady,\u201d opening on Tuesday, August 18.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Based on George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion,” the show is beloved for songs such as \u201cGet Me To The Church On Time,\u201d \u201cOn The Street Where You Live,\u201d “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” and \u201cWith A Little Bit Of Luck.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a classic anywhere, but especially at CLOC it fits really well into how the orchestra works,\u201d said Pearson.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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. \u201cThat\u2019s always fun when it works into our schedule,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Full-season and five-show, flex-season tickets are on sale now. Single tickets will go on sale on Monday, June 15.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWhen we put a season together, it’s also a curriculum,\u201d Pearson said, \u201cnot 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\u2019t see somewhere else or that you might not think to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWe are always trying to get more people into full-season subscriptions because it\u2019s more security for us. It gives us more freedom with programming,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat I love about a nine-show season subscription is that a) there\u2019s some trust there, which is great. You trust us. And b) it\u2019s like going to the gym\u2014you\u2019re forcing yourself to do something, see something, you might not normally see. For example, you might say, \u2018I wouldn\u2019t normally go see \u2018The Student Prince,\u2019 but I\u2019ve already got the ticket and then you go and hopefully you think, \u2018Wow, that was great.\u2019 When we put a season together, we\u2019re thinking about the students, but we\u2019re also thinking about the audience. \u201cI know you may not have heard of, say, \u2018A Light In the Piazza,\u2019 but trust me, you\u2019re going to enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.capenews.net \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" College Light Opera Company (CLOC) will open for its 58th season on Tuesday, June 23. The company\u2019s intensive nine-week season includes a diverse lineup, from concept musicals to traditional Broadway shows, Gilbert and Sullivan, operetta and more. \u201cAt its core, CLOC is an educational institution,” Executive and Artistic Director Mark Pearson said, referring to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2450451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[349474],"class_list":["post-2450450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-arts_and_entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/College-Light-Opera-Company-Readies-For-58th-Season-Arts.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2450452,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450450\/revisions\/2450452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2450451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}