After being a big G&S fan throughout college and grad school, I didn’t get to do much in Philadelphia. I auditioned for Savoy Company’s Iolanthe once (didn’t get it) and then Rose Valley’s Ruddigore (‘we can’t offer you a role, but we loved your audition’). And then moving to New York, I was doing mostly band stuff until the magic of the internet brought me the Savoynet mailing list, and through that, my opera chorus buddy from Philadelphia (now also in NYC) pulled me into a concert Mikado at the NY G&S Society.

The Society is not a performing group, it’s an appreciation group. They host a meeting once a month and outside groups bring in performances – could be a concert of whatever their show just was, or a fun program assembled just for the Society, or even just a ‘scratch’ performance of a show. I’ve now been involved in over 20 years of these programs – as performer, as producer, as pianist (not by choice), as last-minute ‘substitute’. Some of the more memorable turns – showing up for a Utopia concert ready to play Phantis and ending up sight-reading Goldbury instead (plus Tarara). Assembling a “FrankenGondo” concert of The Gondoliers with half the cast from Troupers Light Opera and half from Blue Hill Troupe, whose productions had been a week apart the previous month (and then missing the concert because I got bronchitis or something). Developing a really fun program called “Love, Interrupted” with my dear (late) friend Vikki, that we then revived in Gettysburg for a fringe event at the G&S Festival. And so on.

When I finally started getting the Savoynet MD gig, by the time I was on my second show (“Pirates”), it occurred to me that it would be a great dry run for me to do a concert of my show at the Society as late in the season as possible. So I put together a Pirates (I think I only had one local Savoynet cast member, so cast the rest with friends) and we did it and it was a ton of fun and went very well. Three years later, I did the same with Patience (more local cast members this time) and it was, again, so helpful to have a run-through to show me what needed more attention than I’d already given it.

So, at the beginning of this last season, I claimed the May meeting slot for my own, even though at that point we weren’t sure exactly which show it was going to be (Ruddigore, Gondoliers or Yeomen) or if I’d even be the MD. But I got the job and it was Ruddigore so that got set. And after we cast our Savoynet show (lots of NYC locals this time), I put out notice that this May concert would be happening and please please please put it on your calendars.

Of course I hadn’t thought ahead and realized that this would be less than a week before the anniversary of Charles’s death, and I’d probably be a mess and scheduling some sort of remembrance. But… I knew that the concert would mostly drive itself and actually, whatever remembrance event I had probably would too.

Anyway, people were mostly all-in. My local cast members all said yes, one cast member from out of town agreed to come in for it, and we cast the rest of the roles from friends (and one Savoynet chorister was promoted to a role for the evening). It took me a while to find a pianist, that was kind of a drag, but I ended up booking the same pianist we had the last time we did a Ruddigore concert, and he was terrific. Then, oddly enough, I had a tough time casting the most popular role in the show – the one we had so many excellent candidates for when we cast the Savoynet show, it was the toughest decision. Anyway, I asked Mad Margaret after Mad Margaret – all actresses who’d already done the role fabulously – and they all were like, “oh, no, I’d love to, but I’m out of town” or whatever. I did end up with a fantastic Mad Margaret anyway, thank you, Lynne!

These Society concerts can be so loosy-goosy that often they’re done with no rehearsal at all, but I wanted to at least give us a chance to do things ahead of time. The concert was a Monday night, so I thought, OK, Sunday afternoon and then we’ll all go for drinks or whatever. Sam S, as he has done in the past, opened his home up for the rehearsal, and we had about half the principals there (oddly enough, though, only 1 of the 4 principal ladies). We ran through as much as we could, including choral stuff, and got some good work done – and then, as promised, went out for drinks and food.

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Nowadays, G&S Society meetings are held in a rehearsal studio and we can’t get in until a half hour before. If lots of extra rehearsal is needed, I’ll actually rent another studio so we can run stuff, but that wasn’t necessary. Here, however, we really needed to run Rose Maybud’s stuff and a couple of other things, so as soon as the relevant people showed up, I chivvied them into rehearsal and we managed to get what we needed to do done.

I’d had some extra choristers lined up, but they all dropped out except for one, so poor Judy had to be ‘the bridesmaid’ (not the bride) up with the named-role cast members, but for these concerts, the audience is invited to sing the chorus bits, and the principals do too, so it was all fine.

And then we sang the show! Mostly without dialogue, but put some bits in Act 2 that our Robin had asked for, and we did the variations in score that we’ll be doing this summer. And it went beautifully, and I think we all got a taste for where we are now in our own process and what we still need to work on before August.

And here’s the Act 1 finale. You can definitely see how casual and fun these Society concerts are, and how nice it is to have a low-pressure laboratory to help us.

And then we went out for drinks and food!

And Martin (Sir Despard) had brought me the set of borrowed orchestral parts from Blue Hill and I’m now working with the parts and the full score, very helpful. Two months and change to go…