Light Opera of Manhattan

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Light Opera of Manhattan was an Off-Broadway repertory theatre company that produced light operas, principally the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, 52 weeks per year, in New York City between 1968 and 1989.

Contents

[edit] Beginnings

In the autumn of 1968, William Mount-Burke, former director of The Miami Light Opera and The Stamford Symphony, wanted to establish an Off-Broadway company to perform the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. With no other space available, he staged a free showcase performance of The Pirates of Penzance in his Manhattan apartment. The dozen people in attendance were a packed house.

The enthusiastic response of those present led to the formation of The Light Opera of Manhattan, known as LOOM. After a series of free performances in St. Michael's Church on East 99th Street, Mount-Burke's team was offered the basement gymnasium of The Jan Hus House on East 74th Street (previously the home of Dorothy Raedler's American Savoyards) for a "short engagement." That engagement lasted for six years, during which the company incorporated as a non-profit organization and established itself as a fixture in New York's theatrical landscape. In those early years, the repertory was almost entirely the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Raymond Allen, who had previously sung with the American Savoyards and made guest appearances at New York City Opera and the City Center Gilbert & Sullivan Company, was the leading comic actor for most of the company's performances. Allen wrote an introduction to The Best of Gilbert & Sullivan: 42 Favorite Songs from the G&S Repertoire, a songbook published by Chappell Music Company in the early 1970's. The book includes many photographs of LOOM productions and states that LOOM's year-round performing season was the longest of any company in the United States.

[edit] Casting and production

The casting at LOOM was a mix: a core group of seven Equity leads performed with about twenty young actors working towards their Equity membership. LOOM was the only full-time theatre company in Manhattan with such an arrangement. The pay was minimal, but the company was able to nurture young actor/singers who aspired to be full-time professionals. Performers could work their way from chorus to featured roles in a season or so. Many future New York City Opera and Broadway pros, including Robert Cuccioli of Jekyll & Hyde; Stephen O'Mara, opera singer; Penny Orloff, City Opera and broadway performer; Carolyne Mas, recording artist; Michael Connolly of Annie, Amadeus and others; writer/director Gerard Alessandrini of Forbidden Broadway; Larry Raiken (now a Professor at Hartt College) of Woman of the Year, Baby, Big River, Sheik of Avenue B, Can-Can, How to Succeed..., and Follies, among others; Joan Lader, voice teacher to the stars (her pupils have included Madonna, Patti LuPone, Roberta Flack, and Tonya Pinkins), and Craig Schulman of Les Misérables got their start through LOOM's Equity program. Macaulay Culkin played Tom Tucker (the juvenile "midshipmite") in H.M.S. Pinafore.

LOOM created all its own sets and costumes from scratch, providing a professional standard at minimal cost. Choreographer/stage manager Jerry Gotham (a former Broadway dancer) made much with limited space on a small budget. There were only two people in the pit: pianist Brian Molloy, a graduate of Juilliard (who played every score by heart), and William Mount-Burke playing organ and timpani while conducting the cast. This gave LOOM's performances an intimate sound and kept the focus on the singing.

[edit] The peak years

[edit] Moving up to the Eastside Playhouse

In 1974, the company moved across 74th Street to the more spacious Eastside Playhouse. This 250-seat house was still intimate, but the company could generate substantially more revenues than in the Jan Hus basement. In addition, the theatre had better stage facilities, good seating (instead of folding chairs), stage lighting and a balcony. All the sight-lines were good, whereas in the Jan Hus there were vertical poles interfering with some views. At Jan Hus, the company's staging had been designed to refer to the positions of these poles, and even after the company moved to the Eastside Playhouse, Gotham taught the staging of the (by this time) two dozen shows in the repertory by reference to the imaginary positions of the poles, as they had existed at Jan Hus.

Beginning in 1975 and through the 1980s, LOOM added American and continental operettas to its roster, eventually carrying over 30 shows in its repertory. It's first non-G&S show was Naughty Marietta, with guest artist Joan Sena-Grande in the title role, in 1975. Larry Raiken played Captain Dick Warrington. The next operetta with a guest star was Rudolph Friml's 1925 hit, The Vagabond King, with Broadway veteran Jeanne Beauvais as Huguette. In the mid-1970s, the company asked Alice Hammerstein Mathias (Oscar Hammerstein II's daughter) to create a new translation of Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow. The translation is lighter and focuses more on the humorous aspects of the show than some of the standard translations. With Jeanne Bouvais again in the lead, The Merry Widow was a success that increased LOOM's audiences and received positive reviews. The Vagabond King, The Desert Song, The New Moon, The Red Mill, The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, A Night in Venice, Rose Marie and others became favorites of the company. Among the most successful were Sigmund Romberg's The Student Prince and Victor Herbert's almost forgotten Mlle. Modiste. Both became showcases for Georgia McEver, LOOM's leading soprano for several seasons.

In the 1970s, LOOM also presented a series of September concerts at the Naumburg Bandshell, in Central Park, which were broadcast live over WNYC radio. The company was also featured on NBC's Today program, as well as numerous times on WQXR's The Listening Room.

[edit] Babes in Toyland

LOOM's biggest hit was also its least likely one. Alice Hammerstein Mathias created a new book and lyrics for Victor Herbert's Babes In Toyland, giving the classic operetta its first professional New York production in decades. The new plot centered on two unhappy children who run away to Toyland but are eventually reconciled with their parents. The ensemble turned into mechanical militia for the "March of the Wooden Soldiers," and children from the audience were brought up to help "wind-up" the toy dancers.

Babes was the sure-fire holiday smash that every small theatre company prays for. Parents were thrilled to have something other than Radio City's annual show to take their children to at Christmas time, and older audience members were delighted to hear Victor Herbert's evergreen melodies. LOOM's Babes in Toyland was revived annually, playing to sold out houses from Thanksgiving through New Year's.

[edit] The Festival Year and bright hopes

For their tenth season in 1978–79, LOOM became the first company in the U.S. to stage all thirteen extant works of Gilbert and Sullivan consecutively in one season, one opera per week. The two final G&S operas, Utopia Limited and The Grand Duke, received rare New York professional revivals (the American Savoyards had performed them two decades earlier, and LOOM had also introduced them before this season). Long dismissed by scholars, both shows did strong business and returned for extended runs the following year. Veterans called that year "The Festival Year." Student tickets were available for $4.00. However, the strain of rehearsing and mounting a new production every week for so many weeks in a row took its toll on the cast.

Enjoying good ticket sales and hoping to ensure its future, LOOM began a fundraising drive to purchase the Eastside Playhouse. However, by 1979, diabetes had blinded William Mount-Burke. He nevertheless continued to conduct performances from memory, to plan LOOM’s future, and even to stage new shows after losing his sight completely. For example, in 1980, Mount-Burke directed the first professional production of Arthur Sullivan and B. C. Stephenson's The Zoo given anywhere in the world since 1879. These seasons, despite Mount-Burke's declining health, may have been LOOM's best, with the company attracting high-quality professional singers for their casts, generally improved costumes and sets, and a seemingly secure financial future.

This period in the company's history is lampooned in the 2003 comic novel, Jewish Thighs on Broadway: Misadventures of a Little Trouper by Penny Orloff, who played Josephine in Pinafore, Mabel in Pirates, and the title role in Iolanthe in the summer of 1980.

[edit] Difficult times

Further complications of the disease finally took Mount-Burke’s life in 1984. Gotham and Allen took over as joint artistic directors to oversee the productions, and assistant music director Todd Ellison was promoted to music director. Jean Dalrymple, the veteran producer of City Center's musical revivals in the 1950s who had been involved for many years in fundraising for the company, took over as president and carried on producing the shows, which continued uninterrupted. But the company almost immediately faced a series of unexpected disasters and expenses, perhaps most importantly the loss of its home. The Eastside Playhouse was to be torn down to make way for a small apartment building, and LOOM was forced to leave.

LOOM moved to The Norman Thomas High School Auditorium, which was too large for its intimate productions and too distant from the Upper East Side neighborhood where it had built its reputation. Its reduced audiences were dwarfed by the large auditiorium. Next, from February 1985 to October 1986, LOOM performed at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, but this black box theatre was too small. Although the company's ticket sales improved there, even sellout crowds were insufficient to generate sufficient revenues to stay ahead of the expenses of paying the large casts needed for light opera. Nevertheless, LOOM continued to introduce new productions, including Sweethearts and The Drunkard. Despite constant fundraising, and deep in red ink, LOOM ceased performing in October of 1986.

[edit] The LOOM revival

Jean Dalrymple did not give up. After more fundraising, she brought back choreographer Jerry Gotham and leading comic Raymond Allen as joint artistic directors, and Todd Ellison as music director. Many members of the old Equity and non-equity cast reunited, and LOOM soon resumed a 52 week per year production schedule at the 91st Street Playhouse. In search of a new hit, they revised George M. Cohan's Little Johnny Jones. Renamed Give My Regards To Broadway, it had more tap dancing than any show Off-Broadway and helped re-establish the company's following.

Despite solid attendance, old tax headaches proved fatal. LOOM closed for good in August of 1989, after a run of The Pirates of Penzance – the same show that the company had started with back in 1968. After 1989, there was talk about trying to revive the company, and one or two brief New York City productions used the LOOM name, but they were not by the same company. Raymond Allen died on January 29, 1994 in Queens, New York.

[edit] References

  • Allen, Raymond. The Best of Gilbert & Sullivan: 42 Favorite Songs from the G&S Repertoire. Chappell Music Company.  Book designed by Lee Snider. B&W photos of Light Opera of Manhattan/First Night programmes.
  • Raymond Allen's obituary in the NY Times, February 3, 1994.[1] [2]
  • Orloff, Penny. Jewish Thighs on Broadway: Misadventures of a Little Trouper. Authorhouse.  (ISBN 1-4033-9822-4).

[edit] External links

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