NEW YORK, NY, May 1st, 2008 - America's foremost Gilbert & Sullivan repertory ensemble, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players, proudly announces part 2 of "G&S Fest 2008," a festival of Gilbert & Sullivan productions featuring an unprecedented number of shows in one season, slated for June 6-15th on the great stage of New York's historic City Center (West 55th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues). Under the artistic and music direction of Albert Bergeret, the company has presented over 2,600 performances throughout the United States, Canada, and England. Incorporating a 25-piece orchestra, the productions feature contemporary energy while retaining a traditional respect for each of the G & S masterpieces. New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players is considered by many to be the nation's "leading custodian of the G & S classics."
G & S Fest 2008 is the product of many years and many people. "We could not do this without the collective experience of the Company's many talented artists and the support of our local patrons, both as ticket buyers and financial contributors" said Mr. Bergeret.
Audiences of all ages will enjoy the NYGASP Family Overtureseries of entertaining and informative pre-show musical introductions and plot summaries. Hosted by Artistic Director Albert Bergeret, these interactive and fun-filled presentations are offered on June 7th at 12:45 for Pirates; June 8th at 1:45 for Pinafore; June 14th at 12:45 for Mikado and June 15th at 1:45 for Gondoliers. Your matinee admission is your ticket to Family Overture!
Summer performances June 6-15th feature:
H.M.S. Pinafore: Fri. June 6th –8PM, Sun. June 8th – 3PM, Tues. June 10th - 7PM, Wed, June 11th - 2PM;
The Pirates of Penzance: Sat. June 7th - 2PM, Fri. June 13th - 8PM;
The Mikado: Sat. June 7th - 8PM, Sat. June 14th 2PM;
The Gondoliers: Thurs. June 12th – 8PM, Sat. June 14th – 8PM, Sun. June 15th – 3PM.
Special Notes:
On Tuesday, June 10th (7PM) for their spectacular production of H.M.S. Pinafore ---A free child's ticket will be given for each full priced adult ticket purchased (all price levels are included.) As an added bonus, children will receive a special post-performance backstage tour—hosted by their favorite onstage character!
·On Wednesday Matinee June 11th (2PM) Seniors receive a special 10% off.
Tickets range in price from $96 to $40. (Children 12 or under: half price when accompanied by an adult, 10% Senior discount on $80, $60 and $40 seats). More information and tickets can be obtained through the City Center box office and by phoning CityTix (212) 581-1212 or log on to www.nycitycenter.org.
Plot Synopses
In The Mikado, or The Town of Titipu, the location is a fictitious Japanese town full of colorful characters - 3 little maids from school, a wandering minstrel, a hilariously corrupt public official, and a Lord High Executioner who may have a list of potential victims but is too tenderhearted to actually perform his duties. Beautiful school girl Yum-Yum loves the romantic minstrel Nanki-Poo but is engaged to Ko-Ko the executioner. This romantic triangle takes the usual course of thwarted romance, until the arrival first of the fearsome Katisha, claiming Nanki-Poo as her "perjured lover," and later of the emperor, or Mikado, himself - with his own list of punishments to fit the crime. In order to resolve the ensuing complications, Ko-Ko must use his wits to convince the most unattractive Katisha to marry him - in record time. That done, all other potentially dangerous circumstances are settled by the Mikado's all-encompassing pronouncement "nothing could possibly be more satisfactory."
H.M.S. Pinaforeor The Lass That Loved A Sailor takes place onboard a British man-o-war sailing ship in the late 1800's. The lowly sailor, Ralph Rackstraw, has fallen in love with Josephine, daughter of the repressed, but ever polite, Captain Corcoran whose social climbing ambitions have caused him to promise Josephine in marriage to the insufferable Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B, First Lord of the Admiralty. While the crew and Sir Joseph's groupies, referred to as "his sisters and his cousins and his aunts" dance their way across the deck, Josephine promises not to follow her heart in returning Ralph's affection and the Captain reveals his own attraction to the lowly peddler woman, Little Buttercup, who hints that "things are seldom what they seem." Sir Joseph senses Josephine's coolness to his advances, but is convinced by the Captain to make another effort towards her. In a deliberately absurd twist of fate, Little Buttercup reveals that Ralph and the Captain were switched at birth, thereby allowing both Corcorans to marry the objects of their affections, within their own social classes. Sir Joseph is resigned to marrying his most devoted groupie, Cousin Hebe.
Set on the rocky coast of Cornwall, England---The Pirates of Penzance centers on a band of tenderhearted pirates celebrating the coming of age of their apprentice, Frederic. Although Frederic's apprenticing to pirates was the mistake of his nurse maid Ruth, he has dutifully served, but he now announces his plan to devote his life to the extermination of piracy. The naïve young man meets a group of beautiful girls, their father, the delightfully dotty Major General Stanley, and enlists the help of some bumbling and diffident policemen. But Ruth and the Pirate King tell Frederic that his apprentice papers state that he won't be of age until his 21st birthday, which won't occur until the distant date of 1940 because Frederic was born in leap year on the 29th of February. Frederic is doomed to remain the pirate apprentice. The policemen try to capture the pirates on their own, but are easily defeated. Everyone is happy to discover that the pirates are really all "noblemen who have gone wrong", so all is forgiven in the end.
The Gondoliers, or "The King of Barataria," was the twelfth comic opera collaboration of fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan.Set in Venice, all the young women are infatuated with the two gondoliers Marco and Giuseppe. The men announce that they will pick their brides through a game of blind-man's-buff and get married. The impoverished Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro, with their daughter Casilda arrive in town to seek the husband whom Casilda married in infancy, the son of the King of Barataria. The child was taken from the court by the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, and brought up as a gondolier, ignorant of his true identity. Now it is time for him to ascend the throne with Casilda at his side. The difficulty is that he is known to be either Marco or Giuseppe, but no one knows which, except the woman who nursed the young Prince.
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