HMS Pinafore
Friday, March 3 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 5 at 2 p.m.
Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th St.
Presented by the Department of Music and The Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company.
Laugh your way through one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most popular comic operettas as sailors aboard the Pinafore sing and dance their way through complicated romances and plot twists galore. This jaunty tale of mismatched love pokes fun at patriotism, party politics, the Royal Navy, and the peculiarities of social classes with a love story at the center of it all.
The Captain of the HMS Pinafore wishes his daughter will marry the First Lord of the Admiralty, but her love for a lowly sailor on her father’s crew turns the social class system upside down! Matters are further complicated by the villainous tinkering of Dick Deadeye and Little Buttercup’s revelation of a long-kept, shocking secret. Find out if true love will prevail in the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company’s 2023 production of HMS Pinafore.
Shane Valenzi, Stage Director
Matthew Sheppard, Music Director
The performance will run approximately 2 hours with one intermission.
Tickets: $25 general, $5 students, $15 groups of 10+, $60 patron (includes $35 donation)
About The Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company, Inc.
The Company’s association with the Hyde Park community and The University of Chicago goes back to its beginning in 1960, and subsequent incorporation in 1964. In 1962 it began a 21-year relationship with the Parents’ Association of The University of Chicago Laboratory School. Proceeds from the shows benefited the Lab School’s Adventurers in the Arts Program. Since 1983 the University’s Department of Music has sponsored the Company’s productions, with net proceeds helping to fund the Department’s Performance Programs. In 1991 the University Chamber Orchestra began playing for the performances.
Over its 60 years, the Company has performed every work in the Gilbert and Sullivan canon. The Company has a policy of alternating the signature operas with the obscure, taking into consideration anniversary years and programming by other local companies. H.M.S. Pinafore has been produced eight times. Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Gondoliers, and The Yeomen of the Guard have been produced seven times each. The Pirates of Penzance and Ruddigore, six times each; Princess Ida and Patience, four times; The Sorcerer, three times; Trial By Jury, twice; and Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke, once each. In 2019, the Company produced Merrie England, by Edward German and Basil Hood, the designated successors of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Donor Honor Roll
The University of Chicago Department of Music and The Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company gratefully acknowledge this year’s donors!
GRAND BENEFACTORS $600+
Mark A. Johnson & Judith M. Wright
John J.W. Plampin —In memory of Easley Blackwood
BENEFACTORS $360 - $599
Richard H. Brewer
Barbara Flynn Currie
Tex & Susan Hull
Nancy Levner
SPONSORS $240 - $359
Michael Kuby
Lynne F. Schatz & Ralph A. Schatz
Grace Wolf
PATRON $180 - $239
Mr. & Mrs. Charles Dent
Peter Kauffman
Charlene Posner
FRIENDS $120 - $179
Robert Curley
Richard & Marilyn Helmholz
Peter Kohn
Barry Lesht
CONTRIBUTOR $10 - $119
Calvert & Ann Audrain
Carla F. & Stephen R. Berry
Edwin Childs
Cindy Chormann Hann
Rose Dyrud
Sharon Egan
Roberta Evans
Steve Fallon & Joan Wulff-Fallon
Barry Finkel
Stephen & Helen Gabelnick
Cheryl Gaimari
Victoria Granacki
Ronald Hellenthal
Ellen Hunt
Leif Jensen
Heather Mullins
Marilyn Murray
Gregory Nigosian
Fred Rubinger
Mazin & Michal Safar
Ellen Sheppard
Ellen Sluss
Donna Lee Spray
Sara Stern
Diana & Houston Stokes
Carolyn Sullivan
Anne Van Amerongen
William F. Walsh
Lisa Warshauer
Jeffrey Webb
Elisabeth Weber
John Westberg