“Every heart with hope is beating, for this exciting meeting.  Fickle Fortune will decide who shall be our Bunthorne’s bride

—The Women’s Chorus
Patience
Patience
Poster design by Tom McGregor and Mary Olson

“After much debate internal, I on Lady Jane decide.  Saphir now may take the Colonel, Angy be the Major’s bride.”

“In that case unprecedented, single I must live and die.  I will have to be contented with at tulip or lily!”

—Lieutenant, The Duke and Bunthorne
Patience
The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company Presents

Patience, or Bunthorne's Bride

March 14 to April 6, 2025

BUY TICKETS The GSVLOC Health and Safety Plan for Our Audience

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is pleased to announce that it will present Patience, for four weekends, from Friday, March 14 to Sunday, April 6, 2025.

This production will be directed by Gary Briggle, with music direction by Dr. Randal Buikema.

Patience opens with all the well-born young ladies in the local village, rapturously caught up in aestheticism, and in love with two aesthetic poets. The poets, however, are both in love with Patience, the simple village milkmaid, who cares nothing for poetry. Patience learns that true love must be completely unselfish … it must wither and sting and burn! The young ladies’ military suitors don’t see the point to aestheticism, but they decide to give it a try to win the women’s hearts. It is “touch and go” for a while, but everyone ends up with a suitable partner, even if it is only a tulip or lily.

Patience satirizes the “aesthetic craze” of the 1870s and ’80s, when the output of poets, composers, painters and designers of all kinds was indeed prolific, but, some argued, empty and self-indulgent. This artistic movement was so popular, and so easy to ridicule as a meaningless fad, that it made Patience a big hit in its day. The operetta remains relevant as it can be understood to satirize the adherents to all fads!

The performances will be at the Conn Theater, at Plymouth Congregational Church, located at 1900 Nicollet Avenue South, in Minneapolis.

Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. The Saturday and Sunday matinees are at 2:00 p.m. For a more detailed performance calendar, visit our Tickets page.

If you would like to be notified about when to order tickets, we invite you to add your name to our mailing list. This way, we will know how to contact you!  We never sell our mailing list to other parties.