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College to spin off Ohio Light Opera

Professional company will be nonprofit by 2011

By Carol Biliczky
Beacon Journal staff writer

Published on Friday, Aug 28, 2009

The College of Wooster is spinning off its professional opera company into a not-for-profit organization.

By 2011, the Ohio Light Opera will become an independent arts organization, although it will continue to be housed at the college's Freedlander Theatre.

The new arrangement will enable the college to focus on its ''core educational mission,'' said John Hopkins, associate vice president of college relations and marketing.

''We're not showing them the gate. We very much want them to be part of the summer in Wooster,'' Hopkins said.

He said college officials were ''certainly not unmindful'' of the challenging economic climate facing nonprofits.

''We're going to take two years to work out the details so that it's in their best interest and the college's,'' Hopkins said. ''If they were spreading their wings now, it would be very difficult.''

The college long has touted the Ohio Light Opera as the only professional company in the country devoted exclusively to operetta. Former college President R. Stanton Hales called the company a ''jewel.''

The college has owned and operated the company since its inception in 1979. It has helped to support it by providing administrative leadership and lending its campus theater for performances.

According to the Wooster college Web site, Ohio Light Opera productions attract 22,000 patrons a year. Each season the company focuses on seven or so productions of 19th- and 20th-century operettas from Europe and the United States and, since 2000, classic Broadway musicals.

But since at least last winter, college officials have been reviewing their auxiliary operations with an eye to improving their profitability.

President Grant Cornwell told faculty and staff in a February e-mail that the college was well positioned financially when compared to many of its peers.

But he wanted to significantly improve the performance of the college's nine-hole L.C. Boles Golf Course, 35-room Wooster Inn and the Ohio Light Opera.

In June, the college sold the Guest House, which had served as an annex to the Wooster Inn, to the Montessori School of Wooster for $650,000.

While the Ohio Light Opera still will be associated with the college, the new arrangement will create a much more transparent relationship and give the company more flexibility to raise money and obtain sponsorships, Hopkins said.

The arrangement also will enable the independent, liberal arts college to focus more on its key constituency: 1,800 students.

''Our fundraising folks have a lot of different things that they need to take care of,'' Hopkins said. The Ohio Light Opera can do more targeted fundraising than the college can. ''The college is an educational operation,'' he said.

The Ohio Light Opera's 31st season ended this month.

Carol Biliczky can be reached at 330-996-3729 or cbiliczky@thebeaconjournal.com.

 

The College of Wooster is spinning off its professional opera company into a not-for-profit organization.

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