Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride
8/2-11, Bartell Theatre, at 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday and 3 pm Sunday; free kids' pre-show activities 1 pm, 8/4. $36 ($21 students).
media release: By Arthur Sullivan & W.S. Gilbert
Director J. Michael Bruno; music director Christopher Ramaekers.
Madison Savoyards presents Patience, an operatic ode to the silliness of fads, fashion, and Art for Art’s sake, imbued with the brilliant music of Arthur Sullivan and biting wit of W.S. Gilbert. Live musicians, singers and dancers take the stage of the Bartell Theatre in downtown Madison August 2 through 12 to perform this rarely produced, poetic and aesthetic titillating tale.
In Patience, Madison Savoyards continues presenting the core of the Gilbert & Sullivan corpus, while also finding content that speaks to audiences today. A show that invokes themes of the vain, pretentious, and superficial, as well as of simplicity and love, MSL’s Patience will shed an entertaining and ‘new light’ on our contemporary world. Satire can be a rapier, cutting into the pretenses of society — in the 20th century sometimes a weapon in the class struggle. That may be a loaded concept for the delightfully silly confections of G&S opera, but the operas did (and do!) offer a concerted pushback against the self-important authority figures who were their constant targets. A healthy skepticism laced with broad humor can go a long way toward keeping public officials honest and above-board. Typical of a G&S work, hilarity, contradictions and topsy-turvy reversals ensue, all set to charming melodies, the requisite patter songs, duets and choruses.
Performed on the Drury Stage
Principals
Colonel Calverley - Bradley J. Carter
Major Murgatroyd - Jeremy Dyer
Duke of Dunstable - Roland Beach
Reginald Bunthorne - Dennis Yadon
Archibald Grosvenor - Mike Brady
Lady Angela - Colleen Murphy
Lady Saphir - Jesse Harrison
Lady Ella - Stephanie Frank
Lady Jane - Brendin Larson
Patience - Cat Richmond
Ensemble
Angela Joy Bleke, Olivia Boyd, Winner Ekule, Elizabeth Gokey, Rosalia Johnson, Matthew Jordan, Sarah Kendall, Alexxis McDade, Phil Saganski, Fred Younger, Pamela Ziemlewicz