The Pirates of Penzance
by Gilbert and Sullivan
Town & Gown Players, 1992-93 season
It's probably against the law to have so much fun. I was stage manager for the production. This was the show with a majority-gay(*) pirate crew that loved the dancing. They did hornpipes and clog dances backstage until director Marie laid down the law; next evening I looked up from some running repair and saw them all paired off and waltzing instead. But quietly.
Major-General Stanley's daughters wore gowns in the colors of those little buttermints. Stuart and I got costume credits for learning to stitch a virtually straight seam in them. One of the sisters was arachnophobic and screeched for assistance almost daily (it was a summer show); the continual practice made me pretty good at catch-and-release spidering.
You always hear stories of performances that start late after a series of construction noises from behind the curtain; this was the one. A step fetched loose from its platform, and given the brutal steepness of the steps it seemed best to repair it instantly. May heaven smile on the guy who invented sheetrock screws.
William S. Gilbert must have smiled a little smile when a clarinetist volunteered to play in the band. Our usual orchestration is piano and percussion, but this student wanted to be in the show . . . on the condition that she would only play the second clarinet part.
HM the Queen sat in the royal box and accepted the Policemen's salute in the finale. It must have been quite difficult for her—she had to repeat the mantra "We are not amused" for the whole evening. The crew did not have that problem backstage.
(*)Not a majority, it turns out. I should have said flamboyantly minority-gay instead.
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The Pirates of Penzance