The Charleston Light Opera Guild

The Charleston Light Opera Guild is a volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to providing high-quality and reasonably priced musical theater to Charleston, West Virginia and the surrounding region. Over 200 productions have been staged since the Guild's founding in 1949. The Charleston Light Opera Guild was founded in 1949 by a group of vocal teachers and talented amateur performers who sought an outlet for musical talent in the Kanawha Valley.  Leonard Stocker, the moving force in founding the Guild, had come to Charleston in 1948, after 15 years as a professional singer and actor.  A voice teacher at Mason College of Music in Charleston, he was joined by music teachers Margaret Hope Samms, Annie Laurie Leonard and Marguerite Palmer in forming the Guild.  The initial offering was Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore which played to a standing room only audience at the Charleston High School Auditorium.  Throughout the 1950’s the Guild continued to produce popular operettas.  Stocker, the first artistic director of the group, was succeeded Lila Belle Brooks. The Guild is housed in the former Weekley Memorial church on the corner of Tennessee Avenue and Roane Street on Charleston's revitalized West Side. The facility contains a stage, 225 seat theatre (with a balcony and original stained glass windows), kitchen, gathering room, dressing rooms, carpentry shop, and storage for costumes, lights, sound equipement, props, and sets that have been collected over the years. The theatre provides an intimate setting for our summer and non-main stage productions. Our main stage productions in the spring and fall are (usually) presented at a larger location, such as the Charleston Civic Center Little Theater or The Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences Maier Performance Hall.