Annual Gilbert and Sullivan Production

HMS Pinafore Artwork

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