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The Lyric Opera Theater program in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University is professional training that prepares you for a career as either a performer or music director/conductor in Broadway musicals or opera.
With its faculty and staff of eleven, LOT maintains a high standard of excellence in all aspects of music theater production. Each year, we produce four fully staged and costumed main-stage productions with orchestra, typically two musicals and two operas.
Would you like to direct, choreograph or create costumes for a show? We also sponsor student workshop productions. For these as a student, you do it all – cast the show, direct it, arrange for costumes, sets, lighting and act in it. Recent student productions have included March of the Falsettos, Assassins, and Poulenc’s opera La Voix Humaine.
LOT productions range from standard repertory such as Oklahoma! and The Magic Flute, to productions of brand new works by current composers (The Scarecrow, Joseph Turrin’s 2006 opera). Operas are usually performed in the original language.
Two new programs offer the opportunity for professional experience during your student years. For those studying Broadway musicals performance or Music Direction, LOT collaborates on one production each season with Phoenix Theatre. This collaboration allows the selected students to understudy a role in a professional production. A student in Music Direction serves as Assistant Music Director. Those selected will participate in all music and staging rehearsals at Phoenix Theatre and must be present for all performances in case they are needed. Later in the same season, or at the beginning of the next season, the production is performed in our theatre by those who were the understudies and Assistant Music Director at Phoenix Theatre. The collaboration began in the 2009-2010 season with a production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
A similar collaboration between LOT and Arizona Opera is beginning in fall, 2010. Students are selected through audition to understudy roles in Arizona Operas five productions each season. Students will receive intense vocal and dramatic coaching on the role and will attend all required production rehearsals. They will perform if an understudy is required to step in at any performance. A student in Opera Conducting may also be selected to assist in one or more productions each season.