THEATER REVIEW: “Hello, Dolly!” ★★★ Through Jan. 2 at the Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., Evanston; running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes; tickets $32-$92 at 847-869-3000 or www.lightoperaworks.com.

To do justice to Dolly Gallagher Levi, that ever-optimistic "meddler in life," you've really got to have a hunger for the gal. I suspect Mary Robin Roth — one of Chicago's premiere musical-comedy artists and an actress who has done so many versions of "Nunsense," I half expected her Dolly to come out in a habit — was determined to play this role in her hometown before the proverbial parade passed her by.

Good for her. She surely embraces every outrageous costume, outre wig, truism, business card and, indeed, every last theatrical moment. Thus, she propels the joyous spirit of Rudy Hogenmiller's wholly entertaining and clearly crowd-pleasing Light Opera Works production. This is a role that risks a dizzyingly intimidating collection of comparatives on both the vocal and comedic fronts. You might say that Roth is a very respectable all-rounder, and one who hits a home run when it comes to that crucial intangible of active, passionate joy.

Natalie Ford as Julie Jordan and Cooper David Grodin as Billy Bigelow in "Carousel" at Light Opera Works.

“I ain't afraid of you,” says Julie Jordan in Rodgers and Hammerstein's “Carousel.” “I ain't afraid of anyone.”

Despite many previous spins on this particular not-so-merry-go-round of a musical, those words of surety and defiance have never popped for me with the force they did at Light Opera Works last weekend. That was partly because of the terrific actress playing the role, Natalie Ford, who was so intensely focused. But I think it also had a lot to do with this being a “Carousel” that was directed by a woman.

I remain leery of ascribing particular qualities to particular genders — or sexual identities, or ethnic backgrounds, for that matter. For one thing, that would be hypocritical, given that I review shows across all of them. I've never felt that you have to be black to direct an August Wilson play, although it surely helps. And I've witnessed plenty of feminist works directed with sensitivity and intelligence by men. And I've seen the opposite — when a woman directs a piece of sexist garbage. Great artistry is not dependent on your body or your background but on talent.

Nonetheless, there is an ease with how Stacey Flaster, a young director of musicals whose work has been getting better and better, handles the tricky sexual politics of “Carousel,” a piece that can easily come off as a dangerously romantic justification of a violently dysfunctional relationship.

THEATER REVIEW: "Carousel"

What makes a great “Carousel”? Some would say it's about the level of melodic color in “The Carousel Waltz,” or the force with which the Billy Bigelow delivers that famous “Soliloquy,” or how shrewdly the director navigates a world that's part New England romanticism and part mystical morality play.

Sure, all of that is important. But after seeing — and mostly crying my way through — Stacey Flaster's quietly revelatory production for the Light Opera Works, I've decided that a great “Carousel” really requires one thing above all others. It requires the sheer force of Julie Jordan's selfless love for her man — her no-good louse of a man — to throb throughout every moment of the show, from the moment when she first sees his coiled, nervous young body to the moment when she raises her all-knowing voice in his tragic memory.

Natalie Ford, whose performance here is really quite extraordinary, does precisely that with the focus of a laser. You just ache for Ford in Flaster's production—this actress has one of those magnetic vulnerabilities that recalls Judy Garland at times. You really should see and hear the fatalistic sadness that Ford layers onto “What's the Use of Wond'rin',” that most gorgeous of Richard Rodgers' melodies. But you also see a woman completely certain that love — unshakable love — is the only thing that really matters in life. Which is, after all, the message of “Carousel.” No more, no less.

The pirates, fairies and sailors may be more perennially popular, but “The Yeomen of the Guard” surely is Arthur Sullivan's most masterful score.

When you hear “I Have a Song to Sing, O!,” you feel like listening to an operetta rich in the plaintive, populist tradition of English folk. During the Act One finale, you're sure you're hearing from an English composer whose best work matches the melodic complexity of anything by Benjamin Britten or Edward Elgar. And then Sullivan will surprise you with, say, a piece like “Night Has Spread Her Pall Once More,” a stirring, prescient, rock-like anthem that brings to mind “Les Miserables,” “The Who's Tommy” or even, for me, Green Day's “American Idiot.”

The new Light Opera Works production of this most serious and dramatic work in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire is, for the most part, beautifully sung. Some of the trios and quartets — such as “Strange Adventure” or the gorgeous “When a Wooer Goes a-Wooing” — are simply exquisite, thanks to the sterling vocal quality of Colm Fitzmaurice (who plays Colonel Fairfax) and newcomer Sahara Glasener-Boles, who sings Phoebe's part quite delightfully. And in the role of jester Jack Point, George Andrew Wolff brings his soaring tenor.

That's the good news. And it is very good news, given the quality of the score and the 29-piece orchestra. The show suffers, though, from a chronic inability to trust W.S. Gilbert's dramatic material.

THEATER REVIEW: "My Fair Lady" ★ ★ ★ Through Aug. 30 at Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., Evanston; Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes; Tickets: $30-$88 at 847-869-6300 or www.lightoperaworks.com.

The beloved musical “My Fair Lady,” most people think, is about the transformation of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl whose life is transformed after she learns to elongate her vowels in “The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain.” In fact, class mobility comes naturally and easily to Eliza. Like George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” the play that inspired Broadway’s Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, “My Fair Lady” is really about the transformation of Henry Higgins, Eliza’s initially cruel mentor.

This Shavian stand-in for the entire British establishment has to learn that a savvy, young working-class woman can’t be treated like a caterpillar on a microscope slide. He must understand that a woman who pronounces his name ’Enry ’Iggins is worthy of his love, sure, but also his respect.

Some productions of “My Fair Lady” get that right. Some don’t. Thanks to a couple of very smart, honest and engaging lead performances from Nick Sandys and Natalie Ford, Rudy Hogenmiller’s new show at Evanston’s Light Opera Works falls cheerfully into the former category. Finally—and, boy, it took a while—this company seems to have realized the importance of stellar performances atop its shows.

THEATER REVIEW: "A Little Night Music" ★★★1/2 Through June 14 at Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., Evanston; Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes; Tickets: $30-$67 at 847-869-6300. With Catherine Lord and Larry Adams.

You don’t, I suppose, really need a 28-piece orchestra to do justice to Stephen Sondheim’s gorgeous score for “A Little Night Music,” an operetta that morphs, easier than most shows, into that economically advantageous genre known as the chamber musical. Much of this oft-sardonic romantic farce, after all, is set in sexual chambers of one kind of another. Inside. Outside. Backstage. In the town. In the mind. At a clown-filled county house. In the soft, sensual grass.

Thanks to the intimate nature of the emotions behind, say, a song like “You Must Meet My Wife,” “A Little Night Music” is now usually produced in acoustically minimalist fashion. That’s reasonable. It puts the focus on the acting and on human truths. But the Light Opera Works orchestra (under the direction of Roger L. Bingaman) had barely begun the “Night Waltz” on Sunday afternoon in Evanston before you felt a rush of sensual energy fill the theater, unleashed by the perfection of Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations, performed in close to original form.

The annual holiday show at Light Opera Works is an occasion for intergenerational togetherness. Daddy-daughter dates were pervasive at "The Music Man" Saturday night. The elegantly attired young lady across the aisle from me sported the kind of extended, contented smile that suggested that they could have been massacring Meredith Willson's iconic score and she'd have been still been thrilled to bits, mostly because of whom she was with, and the experience he was giving her.

Light Opera Works isn’t in the habit of massacring scores and Rudy Hogenmiller's enjoyable production of this famous tale of a music-hawking huckster who gets his foot stuck in an Iowan door, plays to this company's usual strengths and steps a little beyond.

THEATER REVIEW: "Side by Side by Sondheim" (★★) runs through Nov. 9 at the McGaw Center, 1420 Maple Ave., Evanston. Running time: 2 hours. Tickets: $24-$39 at 847-869-6300 or www.lightoperaworks.com.

To paraphrase the titular great man himself, Light Opera Works’ new production of the revue “Side by Side by Sondheim” could drive a person crazy. There’s so much that stands in the way of enjoying some very appealing performances.

For starters, Light Opera Works continues to perform its smaller productions in the theatrically deadening surroundings of the McGaw YMCA Children’s Center in Evanston, when (for a show like this, at least) they’d be far better off setting up some tables in the back room of a North Shore tavern.

Light Opera Works has announced its 2009 season.

The Evanston-based company, which specializes in large orchestras, will kick off its '09 slate in June with Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music." "My Fair Lady" follows in August.

In the fall, LOW will produce the locally created musical "Cest La Vie" on its Second Stage. The annual holiday show at the end of 2009 will be Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance."

THEATER REVIEW: "Iolanthe" runs through at Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., Evanston; Running time: 2 hours, 30 min.; Tickets: $29-$85 at 847-869-6300 or www.LightOperaWorks.com.

They’ve got some spunky fairies up in the Evanston “Iolanthe.” One brought to mind Kristin Chenoweth, and another Amy Winehouse, albeit more smiley. A couple even did cartwheels in their sprite duds.

The youthful vigor and insouciance of the fairy ensemble, and a very droll performance from Frank DeVincentis as Private Willis, of the Grenadier Guards, save Kurt Johns’ Light Opera Works revival of the 1882 Savoy opera from its intermittent inclination toward the satirically stiff and the visually formulaic. And when things start to settle into the predictably arch—and whenever a great long chorus line of peers starts marching on from the wings and walking around each other, they surely do—at least the great James Harms is on hand as a live-wire Lord Chancellor.