It all started back in 1962 with a production of The New Moon and continues to this day, with the Albany Light Opera and Theatre Company blazing a trail as a thriving exponent of musical theatre in the city.

As part of Albany’s bicentenary celebrations, the company reprised some of its greatest hits with a weekend of performances to celebrate its own 64 years.

The shows, on July 31, August 1 and 2, were entitled Through the Curtains, taking the audience through 60-odd years of fun and including the premiere of the company’s short black and white film The Bet.

The film detailed the story of how the company began — over a carton of beer all those years ago — and was completed thanks to a City of Albany creative arts grant as part of the bicentenary.

It seems Wilson Weight won a bet with Bruce Houston, John Garritty and Stan Johnson over whether he could start a successful theatre company.

Despite the city being home mainly to choral ensembles at the time, he won his bet and ALOC was born; the ‘theatre’ came later, in the 1990s.

It started rehearsing in a variety of venues until gaining a peppercorn lease in 1965 on the property that is now Dylan’s On The Terrace.

Five years later it set up in the old glass factory in David Street, but the location wasn’t right and when the chance came to shift to what was then the Albany Port Authority, the company moved again.

Housed in half of a disused transit shed, but richer after the sale of the David Street property, the bare shell was soon transformed into a theatre and the first production, Old Time Music Hall, was performed there in late 1993.

The list of shows the group has produced in Albany is an eclectic mix.

It includes classics like Oklahoma, which was performed at the Town Hall in July 1965 and August 1981; Carousel, which had one outing, in October 1968; and Blood Brothers, which came to the Port Theatre in 2014.

Gilbert and Sullivan buffs could have heard HMS Pinafore in 1975, 1991, and again in 2004; the Mikado in 1977; and the Pirates of Penzance in 2001; while the Sound of Music has been another favourite with performances in 2002 and 2017.

There have been regular pantomimes like Jack and the Beanstalk (1971), comedies like Arsenic and Old Lace (1973), mysteries including Rebecca (1976), and pop-based hits like Mamma Mia (2022) and Grease (2023).

Early productions were staged either at the Town Hall or at the Empire Theatre on the corner of Stirling Terrace and York Street while a show called Cross Eyes came to the Scots Church in 1974.

The company has also gone on the road, taking shows to Mt Barker, Denmark and Gnowangerup over the years.

For Through the Curtains, many old hands returned, including John Taylor, who was in every show for 15 years, and who moved the audience to tears with Bring Me Home from Les Miserables.

Indigenous artist Jarrad Inman, who performs as Ricky Neil Jr, returned with a number from Beauty and the Beast while former Albany Primary School teacher Findlay MacNish was the narrator.

Director, vice-president and longtime stalwart Janet McArtney said the production had a mammoth 303 cues and was quite an undertaking.

However, while it’s important to celebrate the past, she said the next generation was the company’s future.

“To be celebrating all these years is a reminder we mustn’t forget our history because it was those people who got us to where we are today,” she said.

“But we want to last more than 60-odd years — we kept going through COVID, though it was tricky — but it is young people who will take us forward.

“It’s fitting to end by looking to our future.

“We have an incredible new generation of talented young performers coming through, many of whom have emerged from our last two productions, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and School of Rock.

“School of Rock was directed by our brilliant choreographer and dancer Lachlan McLean, who, at just 23 years of age, is a wonderful example of the next generation of theatre-makers leading the way.

“The future of ALOTCo is in very good hands.”