OLIVER Presented by the Montclair Operetta Club

Celebrate Charles Dickens 200th Birthday with the Montclair Operetta Club’s “OLIVER”.

BLOOMFIELD/MONTCLAIR, NJ – The Montclair Operetta Club will present Lionel Bart’s “Oliver,” at the Bloomfield College Westminster Arts Center, 449 Franklin Street in Bloomfield. Performances will be held on Nov. 2, 3, 9, & 10 at 8 p.m. and matinees on Nov. 4 and 11 at 2 p.m.

While other theatres are preparing to present Mr. Dickens popular holiday story, the Montclair Operetta Club has chosen to open its 88th season with Dickens’s first musical theater adaptation, “OLIVER” based on the 1838 novel “Oliver Twist.” The story is about an orphan who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin, naively unaware of their unlawful activities. Dickens mocks the hypocrisies of his time by surrounding serious themes with sarcasm and dark humor.

Charles Dickens was born 200 years ago and although a writer from the Victorian era, Dickens’s work transcends his time, language and culture. He remains a massive contemporary influence throughout the world and his writings continue to inspire film, TV, art, literature, artists and academia. 

Under the direction of Bob Cline, veteran Director of 13 MOC productions, the show features a huge cast of 45 local children and adults portraying the denizens of Old London. "I love working in New Jersey theatre,” Cline said, “because it feels like the audience is an audience of experience. They know theatre. This gives me the added challenge of trying to make sure my ideas are new and fresh, as much as my need to respect the work that they are coming to see.” 

Experienced theater goers and novices alike will thrill to hear Lionel Bart’s timeless score featuring such memorable songs as “Food, Glorious Food,” “Consider Yourself,” and “Oom-Pah-Pah.” “The Montclair Operetta Club prides itself on being one of the few Community Theatres to perform with a full orchestra” says Musical Director Gonzalo Valencia. “Our production of Oliver features the original 12 part score performed by professional musicians.”

The Montclair Operetta Club has been producing high-caliber musical theatre since 1925 with its first production of “The Pirates of Penzance” making it one of the country’s oldest continuously producing theaters.

Tickets are $25 for adults, $22 for senior citizens, $15 for students with valid ID and $4 for Bloomfield College students with a valid ID. 

General admission tickets also may be purchased online at mocmusicals.org/tickets.htm or by calling (973) 744-3133.