The Pirates of Penzance

media release: Yo-Ho, me hearties! Madison Savoyards Ltd. be presentin’ The Pirates of Penzance by W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arrrgh-thur Sullivan! There be pirates, maidens, bobbies, and a modern major general! So shiver your timbers and swash your buckles; come and see this rollicking piratical farce!

Frederic, who was mistakenly apprenticed to a band of pirates by his aurally challenged nursemaid, just turned 21. He rebels against his former masters, and he decides to leave the profession to which he was indentured. He encounters a troupe of lovely young girls, who are the wards of one Major General Stanley, and falls in love with a coloratura soprano (as happens so often in these cases) named Mabel. Ruth, the nursemaid, is jealous of Mabel. Ruth wants Fredric for her own, despite an age difference of some 26 years. She informs the Pirate King that Frederic was born on the 29th of February in a leap year. The two of them confront Fredric with the fact that, reckoning by birthdays, he is only 5; and, by appealing to his overweening sense of duty, force him back into the pirate fold. The rest of the story is how the lovers are re-united — boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.

Performed on the Drury Stage

Ticket prices include Bartell Box Office Fees