From The Producer’s Desk
Campus Update:
As many of you know, we recently completed a new building on our West Falmouth Campus. This marks the beginning of a new chapter for College Light Opera Company as we now have year-round office and rehearsal space. Though some of the finishing touches are still to be completed (our mirror wall and ballet bar were just installed last week) the company has already been able to benefit from this amazing resource. If you’d like a tour of the facility or would like to learn more about volunteering at CLOC, please write to info@CollegeLightOperaCompany.com.
Mark A. Pearson, Executive and Artistic Director
Director’s Note
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, with music and lyrics by Steven Lutvak and libretto and additional lyrics by Robert L. Freedman, opened on Broadway in 2013, winning the Tony Award for Best Musical that year. This black comedy musical farce is based off of a 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman. Since it’s run on Broadway, the musical has enjoyed success on two national tours, and we are very excited to perform it here as a CLOC premiere, in a one act version special crafted for this company, and for this time. Over the past week the company has enjoyed approaching the precarious craft of Horatian satire through this production, using exaggeration and parody to make fun of the proclivities of the Edwardian British upper echelon, and expose all of the classicism and imperialism implied. At the musical's end we are telling a cautionary tale. As Monty gains wealth and position, he becomes the very thing against which he was seeking revenge, warning us not to become complacent in our comfort and privilege. In light of this show’s message, I would like to acknowledge that we are privileged to practice the art theatre today on the land of the Wampanoag, also known as the Wôpanâak, people who have faced great hardship and erasure at the hands of colonialism. We thank them for the careful stewardship of their land.
Alison Morooney, Stage Director
Synopsis
Monty Navarro has led a quiet and honest life, until one fateful night he is visited by a friend of his late mother who delivers some unbelievable news. To his amazement, and thanks to a secret his mother kept from him, Monty has noble D’Ysquith blood flowing through his veins, making him ninth in the line of succession to become Earl of Highhurst. After being shunned as his mother was by the wealthy and pretentious family, Monty makes up his mind to remove each of the eight D’Ysquiths ahead of him in order to win the hand of the woman he loves. Monty achieves his goal through a nefarious and hilarious set of events and is crowned the Ninth Earl of Highhurst. Ironically, he is arrested for the murder of the previous Earl, one murder in which he quite honestly had no part. Our show begins as Monty awaits his execution for this murder, composing a memoir containing the “purely factual record of events” so that we may sympathize with his plight...
