“A rollicking band of pirates we!”
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty
March 18 to April 10, 2011
The Pirates of Penzance Program
Directors
| Stage Director: | Lesley Hendrickson |
| Music Director: | Marina Liadova |
Director’s Notes
If you are one of the few members of our audience who has never seen The Pirates of Penzance, we are delighted to be initiating you. However, odds are that there are not many neophytes out there. And if our auditions are anything to go by, there are an awful lot of people who have actually been in a production of Pirates. Pretty impressive, in terms of both longevity and ubiquity, for a work of light entertainment from 1879!
The task for an intrepid company taking on this well-known and widely-produced operetta is avoiding the “been-there, done-that” trap. Not that we‘re keen to innovate just to be different. Frankly, that‘s been done, too: a recent Chicago production planted the plot in modern Key West (pirate margaritas, anyone?). So how about we just tell the story as clearly and honestly as we can – and try very hard to forget that we know what’s going to happen next?
That is our duty – and we are the slaves of duty, after all. Our pirates (“all noblemen who have gone wrong”), the sisters Stanley (“all of whom are beauties”), and lovers (“true till they are wed, and even after”) have a story to tell and we hope it is not too onerous a duty for you to sit back, enjoy, and indulge your inner pirate. Arrrrgh!
Lesley Hendrickson
Alice McGlave as Mabel,
Mather Dolph as Major-General Stanley and
Eric Mellum as Frederic
Two excellent internet resources for information about The Pirates of Penzance:
Show Poster
Poster design by Imagewërks Marketing
Company Photo
Photography by Daniels Studio
“We yield at once,
with humbled mien,
because, with all our faults,
we love our Queen.”
The Pirates of Penzance
Photo Gallery
