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09/28/2016 09:01 AMPerhaps you just want to see an actor rattle off “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” but that’s not the only reason you shouldn’t miss the Connecticut Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s upcoming performance of Pirates of Penzance in Deep River.
“There are a lot of Gilbert and Sullivan groups around, but a lot of the groups have reduced orchestras,” said Producer John Freedman. “When we perform, we perform with a full orchestra. We stage the whole thing, soup to nuts.”
Freedman joined the nonprofit group in 2012. He serves on the board of directors, and is the producer of this year’s show. The Connecticut Gilbert and Sullivan Society was founded in 1980 by Bob Cumming, who retired last year. The group, based in the Middletown area, is composed of members from around the state, and is dedicated to preserving and performing the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.
This is the group’s fourth season at the Performing Arts Center at Valley Regional High School.
“The acoustics are good and it has all the professional equipment we need,” said Freedman of the venue.
The Gilbert and Sullivan Society rehearses during the summer, which means students often aren’t available. However, its cast still includes six student performers. Several hail from a private high school in Montville, and one cast member’s grandson will play a pirate cabin boy. One orchestra member, Laura Hilton, is connected to Valley Regional. Hilton serves as the high school’s choral director and plays first trumpet in the upcoming production.
Freedman hopes to get local students involved in future performances, both on stage and behind the scenes.
“I’d love to have some of the students that were involved in Valley Regional productions join us,” he said. “They have an excellent dramatics program there. Many of the students who might have been interested were away over the summer. But there is always next year, and we are still very much interested in having VRHS students perform and work with us.”
The cast of 35 includes performers from all over Connecticut, with varied backgrounds.
“Some of our cast members have really exceptional voices. They’ve had professional training,” Freedman said.
He noted that one member, soprano Katherine Bowden, is now pursuing a professional career in opera.
“It’s going to be a fabulous show,” he promised.
Freedman says he is confident it will be a fabulous show in part because of Artistic Director Michael Loomis’ experience and enthusiasm for all things Gilbert and Sullivan. Loomis performed with a Gilbert and Sullivan group in Washington, D.C., and as a member of Capitol Steps for many years, all while serving as an editor for National Geographic. His experience dates back to his childhood.
“He’s a real Gilbert and Sullivan aficionado,” Freedman said of Loomis. “Every show he went to, he’ll show all the notes he’s taken about things he’d like to try. He’s just really hardcore into it. He’s an excellent director and an excellent performer.”
However, it’s not just the people that make this performance of Pirates a must-see, according to Freedman.
“We’re putting some of the material back into the show that was in the debut of the show in 1879 that Gilbert removed after that, and we have some new material that we’re putting in,” he said. “A lot of groups try to turn it into a Broadway show and it’s not. It’s different—it was a precursor to the Broadway show.
“Gilbert and Sullivan is at its best when it’s performed close to the original libretto,” Freedman continued. “Gilbert had a particular vision for how things should be staged. There’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor: the silliness of the class system, or in the case of Pirates of Penzance, the irony of being a slave of duty. It’s tremendously funny. There’s a lot of irony in there.”
Freedman’s own love of Gilbert and Sullivan is representative of many others in the group.
“I got into it much the same way that Michael got into it and a lot of people in our group. My parents were big fans, I grew up listening to it. I always thought musically it was captivating, I thought the lyrics were incredibly funny.”
That love of the stage eventually brought him up onto the stage.
“All of a sudden I found myself in 2012 up on stage performing it, which is something I never thought I’d find myself doing—but it’s been a lot of fun,” he said.
The Pirates of Penzance
The Connecticut Gilbert and Sullivan Society produces The Pirates of Penzance on Saturday, Oct. 15 at 2 and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 16 at 2 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center of Valley Regional High School, 256 Kelsey Hill Road, Deep River. For more information or tickets, call 860-554-1256 or visit www.ctgands.org.