The 48th season of the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP) begins with Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers from Friday, October 28 through Sunday, October 30 at Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. Founder and Artistic Director Albert Bergeret, recent recipient of a Legend of Off-Broadway award for nearly 50 years of achievement, directs and conducts the full orchestra, with choreography by David Auxier.
The Gondoliers, or The King of Barataria is a classic send up of Republican (in the generic sense) principles and class distinction using two distinct story lines of principal characters: the Venetian gondolier couples, and the impoverished and corrupt quasi Spanish (read British) nobility, connected by a humorously ominous Grand Inquisitor.
The show will feature a cast of NYGASP veterans and new company members who perform the brilliant wit of this classic with its lively Italianate score. A new visual twist in Act 2 suggests that the Venetian gondoliers, when they move to the fictitious kingdom of Barataria, have ordered their new outfits from Titipu, Penzance and the Houses of Parliament, in a sly reference to other classic productions in the NYGASP repertory.
The NYGASP production of The Gondoliershas been in the company’s repertory for over 40 years. This season’s principal cast includes Sarah Caldwell Smith, Amy Maude Helfer, Cameron Smith and Matthew Wages as the Venetian gondolier couples; David Macaluso, Angela Christine Smith and Michelle Seipel as the Duke, Duchess and daughter of the Spanish Plaza-Toro family; John Charles McLaughlin as drummer boy Luiz, David Auxier as the supercilious Grand Inquisitor Don Alhambra del Bolero and Victoria Devany as the mysterious nursemaid Inez.
For information on all shows and to purchase tickets please visit www.nygasp.org/.
The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College is located as 695 Park Ave (at 68th Street), New York, NY
