Sir William S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan began their writing partnership in 1871. Although the two men enjoyed their own successful careers as lyricist and composer respectively, they achieved international fame by teaming up with producer Richard D’Oyly Carte and penning fourteen comic operas including, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Mikado, Ruddigore and The Yeoman of the Guard. The Pirates of Penzance remains one of their most popular operettas. In 1980, Joseph Papp along with The New York Shakespeare Festival produced a revival of Pirates in Central Park which starred Kevin Kline as the Pirate King and Linda Ronstadt as Mabel. The production went to Broadway in January of 1981 and ran for 787 performances.
Like all of their works, Pirates pokes fun at the British class system and Grand Opera’s conventions of a sense of duty and “respectability”. The British government is often mocked as well as Grand Opera itself. Gilbert was fascinated with the concept of “topsy-turvy”. In H.M.S. Pinafore, for example, the “lowly born sailor” Ralph and Capt. Corcoran are actually switched at birth and it was Ralph who was actually the member of the upper class. Here, the pirates are actually “noblemen who have gone wrong”.
The recent rise in COVID cases has forced us into an on-demand, filmed performance which has its challenges, however, the students are excited to showcase their work in any medium. Thank you supporting our theatre, and we hope that you enjoy our production of The Pirates of Penzance.
