SHOWS AnD HISTORY

About Us

For the past 75 years Charleston Light Opera Guild has provided a showcase for area talent. The group was founded by enthusiastic singers and music teachers that included Lila Belle Brooks and Margaret Hope Samms, and a relocated former professional actor and singer, Leonard Stocker. The first production, Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, HMS Pinafore, was not chosen as much for its musicality as for the fact that no royalties were required. The show played for one night only in January 1949 to a packed house at Charleston High School Auditorium. From this humble beginning emerged a community group that has continued to entertain, excite and inspire audiences with high quality entertainment for seventy-five years.

During the first decade Guild productions included Roberta, The Chocolate Soldier, Naughty Marietta, and most of the other popular operettas of the day with an occasional musical, No, No Nanette and Carousel. Shows were mostly produced at the CHS Auditorium with some at United Fuel Auditorium, Morris Harvey College Theatre, and the Municipal Auditorium and, finally by 1959, at the new Charleston Civic Center. Rehearsals were held in church basements and set building took place in members’ basements and, at times, in space donated by Columbia Gas. Leonard Stocker was the original director with Lila Belle Brooks as musical director. Quickly the two began to co-direct productions. When it was discovered that actor Tom Murphy was skilled at staging, he became the group’s director with choreography by teachers that included Elizabeth Embleton and Nat Dano and musical direction by Brooks until she departed West Virginia in the late 1950s. The Guildaires, a music performance troupe of Guild singers, also entertained throughout the state. Many charter members of the Guild, plus others who quickly became involved, were in every production of that era.

Oklahoma! ushered in the 1960s and is credited as the show that introduced the group to continual Broadway musical theatre. This was the era of Classical Broadway and the Guild produced all of the popular titles from South Pacific, The King and I, Annie Get Your Gun, Guys and Dolls, Brigadoon, The Sound of Music, Damn Yankees, The Music Man, Kiss Me, Kate, How to Succeed in Business. . . . , Camelot and Oliver! to Hello, Dolly!. Imogene Lee accompanied Guild productions for two decades. During the 1960s the Guild purchased its first workshop on Charleston’s East End. It provided space for rehearsals, costume storage, set construction and eventually summer musicals were presented in the workshop. During the 1968-69 season, the roof collapsed on the Guild workshop, thus only one production, West Side Story, was produced until the fall of 1969. Doug Martin had been Guild director for four years with Andre Van Damme as choreographer. With Hello, Dolly! in 1969, Tom Murphy, Nat Dano, and N. David Stern assumed the directors positions. Productions sometimes were presented in other areas of the state and Murphy had restaged one of the Guild musicals to play at Grandview Outdoor Theatre. Several students and adults, who later would become Guild leaders on and off stage, began devoting time with CLOG during the 1960s.

With the success of Showboat in 1970, the Guild returned to two shows a year during November and May. Guild summer theatre was born during this era. Some exploratory summer productions had been done at Pipestem State Park in 1970. Tom Murphy and new choreographer, Nina Denton Pasinetti, wanted to present summer shows. First, they mounted an outdoor production of Your Own Thing at Wattt Powell Park in 1971 and then found ways to mount Li’l Abner, The Wizard of Oz, and Godspell at other locations. By 1975 summer theatre was a reality with the production of Godspell, now acknowledged as the show that began continual summer theatre. These shows were devised to give opportunities to young and unseasoned performers and were done with a small budget. In addition to two musicals a summer, seven evenings of dance productions were mounted at the Guild Workshop between 1975 and 1982.  The Light Opera Guild had always used a union orchestra. By 1978 volunteer orchestras became a reality under musical director Tom Reed. Shenandoah was remounted at Pipestem State Park.  Productions of Fiddler on the Roof, Man of La Mancha, Shenandoah, Gypsy and Pippin were produced for the first time.

The 1980s introduced Chicago, Grease, Annie, Barnum, A Chorus Line, 42md Street, Anything Goes, Evita and summer theatre productions of Little Shop of Horrors, Babes in Arms, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. With the departure of Tom Murphy, following nearly thirty years as director/producer, Nina Denton Pasinetti became the Guild’s artistic director. John Marshall musically directed many of the shows. The first African-American musical, The Wiz, was produced in at the Civic Center Little Theatre in the winter of 1986 between the November and May productions. Regular season shows were all produced at the Civic Center while summer musicals were mounted at the East End workshop. The Guild’s 40th Anniversary was celebrated with a dinner dance at Edgewood Country Club.

By 1995 the Guild found a new home on the West Side of Charleston at the former Weekly Memorial Methodist Church. Led by fundraiser Mark Sadd, the building was purchased by donations and the Guild’s own reserve and was converted into a workshop and theatre. Many summer theatre productions, and others, continue to be mounted in this space. The first musicals in the new theatre were Cinderella and Company during the summer of 1996. Starting in 1999, after seeing a summer revival of A Chorus Line in the Guild Theatre, Mrs. Alex Schoenbaum began providing sponsorships for Guild summer productions. She established a fund at the Greater Kanawha Valley Association in 2017 to ensure that summer productions would continue for many years. The Guild presented Follies for its 50th Anniversary and one month later held a gala event at the Marriott to celebrate the Anniversary. Follies featured many Guild charter and first decade performers including Louis Husson, Shirley Annand, Millie Payne, Betty Hamilton, Joe Romagnoli and Phyllis Sadd. The celebratory weekend included fun performances by former leading characters at the Guild Theatre on Friday night followed by the Gala on Saturday night and a house party on Sunday afternoon. Many shows were revived during this decade and new ones introduced. Funny Girl, Into the Woods, Dream Girls, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Will Rogers Follies, La Cage Aux Folles, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and Peter Pan premiered.

The 2000s saw a grand revival of Kiss Me, Kate and new productions of A Little Night Music, Ragtime, The Producers, Curtains, and Rent plus summer youth productions of Footloose, Fame, Smokey Joe’s Café, Seussical the Musical and The Fantasticks. CLOG hosted two collaborative Summer Theatre Festivals with Kanawha Players and Charleston Stage Company. These were held at the Guild Theatre with nine theatre companies from across WV presenting one-acts. Technical director, Thomas P. Pasinetti, led the Guild into an era of professional rental sets and costumes for many productions. During the 60th Anniversary CLOG’s first operetta, HMS Pinafore was produced at The Charleston Light Opera Guild. Theatre.  A revival of The Music Man in 2003 was the first show the Guild or any community group mounted at the Clay Center. Performances in the Clay Center have all been sponsored by Ed and Susan Maier plus others. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was first presented in 2005 at the Clay Center. Disney’s High School Musical at the Clay Center in the summer of 2007 was an enormous success and is CLOG’s largest seller to date. Summer shows were now budgeted equal to others. Several Guild productions of this era were repeated at Camp Washington Carver. A city-wide Arts promoting event, FestivALL, was begun in June 2005. Charleston Light Opera Guild has been one of the major headliners of the event and has introduced a new production each June. Charter Member Louis Husson was honored on his 80th Birthday with a tribute and performance by CLOG members. Nina Denton Pasinetti was honored during her 25th year as artistic director with a celebration at the Charleston Woman’s Club. Guild performers thru the years had often performed at the Greenbrier Hotel and in 2006 Guild charter member Lawson Hamilton arranged a concert version of South Pacific that featured Guild performers, along with Tony Award-winning actors, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Lilias White, and newcomer, Broadway actress and singer Katie Rose Clark.

By 2010 the Guild introduced some older shows, like Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, plus some new blockbusters, Les Miserables, Disney’s Mary Poppins, Mamma Mia!, The Color Purple, Spamalot, Legally Blonde the Musical, 9 to 5, The Wedding Singer, Catch Me If You Can, Sister Act, The Addams Family, Hairspray, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Shrek the Musical, The Full Monty, plus some quality smaller shows, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Next to Normal, Bright Star, The Bridges of Madison County, and a few Christmas themed shows that played at the Norman Fagan Theatre at the Culture Center, Miracle on 34th Street, and two different productions of A Christmas Story. During a FestivALL production of Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2011, former Guild dancer and actress Jennifer Garner, now a Golden Globe film star, returned home for a red carpet Guild benefit celebration. During the summer of 2013 the Guild presented The Civil War at the Culture Center during West Virginia’s Sesquicentennial. Guest professional actor David Selby portrayed Abraham Lincoln during one performance and Mountain Stage creator and host, Larry Groce, appeared as the balladeer. A revival of Godspell in 2014 celebrated 40 years of summer musical theatre and honored Grammy recording artist Kathy Mattea, a member of the first Guild summer show cast along with other returning cast members. This was the Guild’s busiest era to date with forty-seven different productions produced in different venues from the Guild Theatre to the Culture Center, Civic Center and Clay Center. A $2 million endowment campaign headed by Dr. Dan Foster and Kay Goodwin, along with honorary chair Jennifer Garner was introduced in 2019 at the Kathy Mattea concert at the Charleston Light Opera Guild Theatre. The group celebrated 70 years with a revival of Oklahoma! that featured, for one performance, returning former Oklahoma! productions’ cast members Louis Husson, Bob Howell, Gary Brown, Tim Harper, Dan Mendeloff, Jennifer Singletary, Jeff Hanson and Rebecca Robbins. A dinner, dance and gala celebration followed in the renovated Civic Center ballroom, now renamed as Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

Only one production was produced in 2020, a revival of The Sound of Music. Memphis was cast, rehearsed and then canceled due to the Covid pandemic. Over one year later Guild theatre returned with two summer outdoor productions, Sondheim’s Putting It Together at the Clay Center Sculpture Garden and Ring of Fire, the music of Johnny Cash at the Schoenbaum Stage, Haddad Riverfront Park. Little Women the Musical followed in the fall of 2021 at the Clay Center. A production of Paradise Park the Musical, written by Danny Boyd and musician Larry Groce was presented in the winter of 2022 at the Guild Theatre. The last five years has seen musicals like Bonnie & Clyde, Something Rotten!, Kinky Boots, Elf the Musical and The Prom introduced to area audiences plus, as always, some revivals. The Guild introduced a summer musical theatre workshop and showcase in the summer of 2024 for sixth – twelfth grade students. A celebration of the success of the Endowment Campaign was held at the University of Charleston in December 2022. During the 2023 summer revival of Grease at the Clay Center, Nina Denton Pasinetti was honored for her 40th year as Guild artistic director. Members from five different Guild casts of Grease were in attendance. The Guild’s 75th Anniversary season concludes with a revival of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at the Clay Center and a gala celebration at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

Charleston Light Opera Guild has produced 262 productions and numerous area entertainments. Cast sizes have varied from two to seventy and have allowed local West Virginians to express their talents through music, drama, dance, backstage, and administrative talents. More than 14,000 young audiences have viewed a Guild production during school day shows at the Clay Center. The Light Opera Guild continues to be managed by a volunteer Board of Directors that is elected by the membership. CLOG has been honored with a 2018 Governor’s Arts Award for Art Organization of the Year, 2016 ‘Arts to the Max’ Award from Charleston Area Alliance, 2016 Arts Organizational Leadership Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a 1996 Mayor’s Award for the Arts. Many working professionals including Jennifer Garner, Kathy Mattea, Ann Magnuson, Joe Chrest, Billy Breed, Rick Meadows and Rebecca Robbins honed their skills performing on the Guild stage. Charleston Light Opera Guild is the only arts group in the area devoted exclusively to musical theatre. 

Selected Early Show Photos

Show History