No Opera at the Op’ry House Tonight

South Orange County Community Theatre’s Camino Real Playhouse presents its annual authentic melodrama, Tim Kelly’s No Opera at the Op’ry House Tonight. Entertainment suitable for the entire family, melodramas dominated the American theatre from 1860 to 1910, and many a frontier town had a stage where the miners and dance hall gals came to hoot and holler. Here is your chance to return to a former time of slapstick comedy, villains, heroes and beautiful heroines. Everyone joins in the fun by cheering the hero, booing the villain and tossing the occasional foam “rock” at the bad guy.

The Salami Opera Company is about to fall apart in the dusty hamlet of Desert Rat in the Arizona Territory. That foul villain, Baron Wolfgang von Wolfpack, knows that the Opera’s prima donna, Alma Pumpernickle, is about to inherit a fortune in gold mines — but before Wolfpack can claim his prize, he must reckon with the outrageous Madame Violetta. The action climaxes with a performance of Billy Bright’s opera, Il Pistachio.