LIGHT OPERA WORKS To Become MUSIC THEATER WORKS, Effective 1/2/2017          

Light Opera Works unveiled its new name at their spring gala Saturday, April 16, at the Sunset Ridge Country Club in Northfield.

Effective January 2, 2017, the company will be known as Music Theater Works, announced general manager Bridget McDonough and artistic director Rudy Hogenmiller.

McDonough said, "After 35 years, we decided to make a change. Light Opera Works was a wonderful name for a long time, but we felt it no longer told the full story of who we are and what we do."

"The company will remain a home for light opera," she continued, "but we are also the home of Broadway classics, Great American Songbook concerts and popular educational programs for young people. We wanted our new name to reflect the diversity of our repertoire and programs."

Hogenmiller said that people unfamiliar with the company often asked "if we perform short -- 'lite' -- versions of grand operas. There's nothing 'lite' about our productions! We pride ourselves on full-scale stagings of musical theater classics. Everything from Gilbert and Sullivan and Franz Lehar to Lerner and Loewe and Jerry Herman, with big casts and full orchestras. We needed a name that gives people a sense of that."

McDonough and Hogenmiller asked for input from Light Opera Works subscribers and patrons three months ago. "Suggestions poured in," said Hogenmiller. "Our audience was not shy!"

The 2016 season opens in June with MY FAIR LADY, followed by MAME (August), LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU: JULE STYNE'S GREATEST HITS (October) and DIE FLEDERMAUS (December).

Light Opera Works is a resident professional not-for-profit theater in Evanston, founded in 1980. The company's mission is to produce and present musical theater from a variety of world traditions. All productions are presented in English, with foreign works done in carefully edited modern translations. Maximum scholarship is employed to preserve the original vocal and orchestral material as well as the spirit of the original text whenever possible. Audiences have come to know that at Light Opera Works they will experience repertoire often unavailable on the stages of commercial theaters and opera houses, in modern productions with professional artists and full orchestra.

Light Opera Works' mission is to produce musical theater from a variety of world traditions, to engage the community through educational and outreach programs, and to train artists in musical theater.

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