New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP) returns to New York for its 47th season, and its first full production since January 2020, with one of Gilbert & Sullivan’s most famed works, The Pirates of Penzance, from Friday, April 8 to Sunday, April 10 at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College.
The show will feature a cast of NYGASP veterans and new company members bringing this classic to life, as relevant for contemporary audiences as it was when written—with re-imagined scenic elements and newly designed costumes add to the visual experience.
The Pirates of Penzance features a score that includes such favorites as “I am the very model of a modern Major-General” (the most frequently parodied patter song ever), coloratura soprano opera inspired “Poor Wand’ring One”, Sullivan’s signature famed double chorus “When the Foeman Bares His Steel” and “Come friends who plough the sea” (the source for the tune of “Hail, hail the gang’s all here” and reminiscent of the Anvil Chorus from Verdi’s Il Trovatore –a true example of historical before and after).
On the coast of Cornwall, a band of tenderhearted pirates celebrates the coming of age of Frederic, who was mistakenly apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday. Now, Frederic has vowed to devote his life to the extermination of piracy—until a ludicrous leap year snag threatens to keep him apprenticed to the pirates for life! Throw in a bevy of beauties, a brash Pirate King, the delightfully stuffy Major-General Stanley and you’ve got what The New York Times calls “an endearing production with high musical standards and spirited performances.”
This season’s cast includes veteran soprano Sarah Caldwell Smith and newcomer Sophie Thompson as Mabel, comedians James Mills and David Macaluso alternating as pattering Major-General Stanley and pirate side kick Samuel, Cáitlín Burke and Angela Christine Smith as nursemaid Ruth, two Sergeants of Police—David Auxier and booming basso Quinto Ott, David Wannen and Matthew Wages as the Pirate King, tenors Alex Corson and Christopher Robin Sapp as Frederic, with Amy Maude Helfer, Hannah Holmes, Elisabeth Cernadas, Laura Sudduth, and Caitlin Borek as the Major General’s daughters.
Founder and Artistic Director Albert Bergeret shares the conductor’s podium with Associate Conductor Joseph Rubin.
Tickets are $25 – $105. For reservations and further information, visit www.nygasp.org/.
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