Preview: NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 at Oberlin Music Theater Program

On December 3, 2025 the lights will come up in 300-seat Wurtzel flexible black box theatre on the first major production of the new Oberlin College’s Music Theater Program, giving the theatrical world their initial glimpse of a segment of the 75 students (55 transfer upper classmen and 20 Freshmen), who make up the department’s first class.

Until this Fall, Oberlin did not have a program in Musical Theater.  That is quickly changing.

The College hired Victoria Bussert, who has directed more than 500 stage shows and has established herself as one of the premiere music theater educators, to lead a hand-picked faculty to put Oberlin on the world theater map.

Before coming to Oberlin, Bussert was director of the Baldwin Wallace University’s music theater program, named by Backstage as one of the top musical theater programs in the nation, and the Hollywood Reporter as one of the 25 best drama schools in the world.

NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 is a sung-through musical adaptation of a 70-page segment from Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel War and Peace.  It is based on Natasha's romance with Anatole and Pierre's search for meaning in his life. 

The score of the “electropop opera,” merges Russian folk and classical music with indie rock and EDM influences. The piece is sung-through, with just one line of spoken dialogue.

In 1811, a comet officially known as C/1811 F1 was visible to the naked eye for a record 260 days.  The huge comet, which is often call the Comet of 1812, became a fascination for artist and writers who painted it and wrote stories with it as the focus. 

In the Tolstoy novel, he describes Pierre observing this “enormous and brilliant comet.”  He went on to indicate it “was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world.”  From the standpoint of the Russians, the prognostication became true as the invasion of Russia by Napoleon (Patriotic War of 1812)took place.

On Broadway, the set was a series of platforms, with staircases which allowed the actors to wander from one level to another.  Attenders were seated in nooks and crannies and musicians were seated or stood in varying places, including an orchestra circle in the middle of the stage area. Members of the cast played musical instruments, supporting the orchestra.  The singing was divine and the costumes were era-correct.

It will be interesting to see how Bussert, her technical staff, musical director, choreographer and students confront the intricacies of the show.  It will be the first challenge of the fledgling program to show whether it can reach for the stars, both figuratively and literally.