I've always loved a good Gilbert and Sullivan production. Arthur Sullivan's grand orchestral themes make me sway reliably. W.S. Gilbert's rhymes are impeccable, his cutting satire still bites, and many punchlines still land. In fact, the whole musical package still generally slaps after 150 years.
 | Wildly popular from 1880 into the 1920's G&S operettas fell out of the public light when modern musicals and radio began to dominate the scene, until Joe Papp's1980 production revitalized and modernized the operetta. He envisioned a swashbuckling, Errol Flynn type Pirate king and energetic modern staging. He moved away from the precise intonations of opera singing, instead enlisting Broadway singers and pop stars as his cast. Papp's vision struck a chord, and stirred a revival of G&S material throughout the theater landscape. Even today, Penzance productions remain a staple, and almost always presented using the Joe Papp template. |
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It occurred to me that enough time has passed that the show could stand a shot in the arm again. I started imagining what it would be like to repackage the original melodies into a tight 65 minutes, and found that it could be done without losing any of the story at all, thanks to a lot of repetition in the original.
I realized there are certain elements of the narrative that have long since aged out of tastefulness, and would be good targets for new jokes, character perspectives, and recontextualizations. These new elements could underline Gilbert's original story intent, but inject the show with surprisingly modern flavor.
I imagined how powerful this music would be, filling up a small cabaret space or black box. The show is rarely produced with less than 16 cast members, and is too unwieldy for a tiny theater. So I tried calculating how small a cast could be, without losing harmonies or characters, and found the number was 9.
Now, I thought, that might be something. 9 dynamic singing actors, putting their whole imaginations into rethinking these classic characters through a modern lens.
This fall we will be cracking that egg in rehearsals, then showing off what we come up with on Dec 14th and 15th at the Broadway Comedy Club.
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