Edwin Lester

Edwin Lester (30 March 1895, New York City - 13 December 1990, Beverly Hills, California) was an American theatre director, impresario, and producer. He was the longtime general director of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, which he founded in 1938. He also co-founded the LACLO's affiliate organization, the San Francisco Civic Light Opera, with Homer Curran in 1939. Under his leadership, the LACLO produced or co-produced several of their own shows, a number of which went on to wider success, including Song of Norway (1944), Magdalena (1948), Kismet (1953), Peter Pan (1954) and Gigi (1973). Lester also brought in shows from Broadway to California, often with their original casts.

Born in New York City, Lester worked professionally as a singer during his childhood and then had a brief career as a concert pianist. He moved to California to work for Sid Grauman at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood where he staged spectacle prologues in the late 1920s. In the early 1930s he worked as a talent manager for performers.

In 1938 Lester founded the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera under the motto "Light Opera in the Grand Opera manner". The company opened its first season in 1938 with Franz Schubert's operetta Blossom Time, presented in English with stars John Charles Thomas and Francia White. The production was both a critical and financial success, and the company went on to have three more sold out productions that season with Sigmund Romberg's The Student Prince, Romberg's The New Moon, and Jerome Kern's Roberta.

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