LIGHT OPERA WORKS is an important regional professional theatre in Evanston, Illinois, founded in 1980. The company produces American operetta and music theater on two stages. Light Opera Works is the region’s music theater specialist presenting great music, great stories and great shows with full-scale productions of classic Broadway musicals as well as lesser-known musicals and American and European operetta with full pit orchestra, national talent, and all-professional cast.

The Main Stage features full productions with orchestra, large casts and elaborate sets for classic American musicals like My Fair Lady,  Kiss Me Kate, and The Music Man as well as newer works like Ragtime and 110 in the Shade, plus American works like Victor Herbert’s Sweethearts, European operetta like Lehar’s The Merry Widow and the works of Gilbert and Sullivan,. On the smaller Second Stage the company stages new works and revues like the Jefferson Award-nominated Side by Side By Sondheim, and significant revivals like I Do! I Do! by Jones and Schmidt in October 2010.
 
Programs
Main Stage, at the 1,000-seat theater at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston where the company mounts three professional productions each year. Productions feature well-known and emerging soloists, professional chorus and full live orchestra, all staged and rehearsed by established directors and designed by professional set and costume designers

Second Stage, an intimate 260-seat theater at the McGaw YMCA Child Care Center Auditorium in Evanston.  Mounting productions at this more intimate space increases Light Opera Works programming flexibility, allowing it to present smaller, more diverse, and more contemporary musical theater works.  This alternate location is helping the company to build a broad audience of diverse ages and backgrounds.

Operetta Concerts, a new program for 2012, will feature revues and full-length operettas in concert format with piano quintet or chamber orchestra. Presented at Nicholls Hall at the Music Institute of Chicago.

Community Partners programs are The Musical Theater Summer Workshop 5-week summer program for children and youth including full scholarships for low income youth, YouthReach field trips, student half-price tickets, and family programs, SeniorReach group benefits for seniors, Golden Years Concerts in nursing homes and community centers and ticketREACH free and low cost seats for partners in the social services.

Midwest New Musical, a workshop program for aspiring writers and composers of musicals, including reading and staged presentations of new works.