H.M.S. Pinafore

Our 45th Annual Champagne Gala & Auction


59th season log



past seasons link
The Gondoliers
The Pirates of Penzance Singalong

 

2011-12: Our 59th Season!

Our 2011-12 Season is coming to a close. We have one performance left - The Pirates of Penzance Singalong. Our season brochures for our 60th Anniversary Season will be mailed in April. Single tickets will go on sale on May 1st after we have renewed, and filled new, subscriptions.

Send us an email to join our mailing list and receive a season brochure and other updates.
You can also download our current brochure here. We hope to see you in the theatre soon!
Modern Major General

Major-General - F. Lawrence Ewing
Pirate King - Charles Martin
Samuel - Chris Shuford
Frederic (SF and WC) - Andy Truett
Frederic (Pt. Reyes) - Michael Desnoyers
Sergeant - Jonathan Spencer
Mabel - Jennifer Ashworth
Edith - Kelly Powers
Kate - Eliza Leoni
Isabel - Brenna MacIlvaine
Ruth - Diane D'Angelo

 Pirates singalong

Join us at our swashbuckling birthday celebration for Frederic the pirate apprentice! Always a highly anticipated leap year event, everyone is encouraged to join Maestro Baker Peeples and some of your favorite Lamplighter singers and musicians in singing any and all parts (supertitles provided). You too can be the Very Model of a Modern Major General... or a Piratical Maid of-all-Work... or a Slave of Duty... Come in costume or wear your landlubber outfit. Prizes for the best costumes. Arrrr!

Presentation Theater at USF, San Francisco
Sunday, March 11• 2:00 PM
Tickets: 415-227-4797 • brownpapertickets.com

Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek
Sunday, March 18 • 2:30 PM
Tickets: 925-943-7469 • lesherartscenter.org

Dance Palace, Point Reyes
Saturday, March 24, 2012 • 8:00 PM
Tickets: 415-663-1075 • dancepalace.org
The Pirates of Penzance Singalong The Pirates of Penzance Singalong

Coming up Next Season!

Gilbert & Sullivan's

The Mikado
The Mikado will be performed in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Mountain View, Livermore and Napa. Full details coming soon!

The following are productions that have closed for the season
Please check back often for information on our upcoming performances!
The Gondoliers

The Gondoliers involves a pair of handsome Venetian gondola oarsmen and a mix up of identities at birth. Along the way to resolving the confusion, Gilbert skewers issues of social equality and the class system with his usual brilliant wit and groundbreaking lyrics. When The Gondoliers premiered in London in 1889, it was given the highest critical acclaim from local media and from England’s Queen Victoria herself, who was so moved that she wrote extensively in her personal diary of the show’s inescapable charm. One journalist reviewing the production wrote, plainly, “it is not opera or play. It is simply entertainment – the most exquisite entertainment we have ever seen.”

While most Gilbert & Sullivan operettas are strictly set within the confines of the composer’s home country of England, The Gondoliers score was widely influenced by a visit Sullivan made to Italy in 1888. Italian folk dances such as the tarantella and saltarello jostle with other vivacious national dances such as the cachucha (a fast gypsy dance from Spain) and operatic influences including Bellini, Bizet, Handel and Mozart.

Below is a fascinating podcast, with slides, created by our Resident Music Director, Baker Peeples, explaining the background and story of The Gondoliers. Recorded excerpts are from the 1950 D'Oyly Carte Opera Company recording, courtesy of the Internet Archive. Photos courtesy of the Lamplighters.

 The Duke and Duchess of Plaza Toro




Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF
CLOSED

Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek
 CLOSED

cast list
reviews




CLOSED
Price: $55 - 97 (cost per ticket over $49 is tax deductible)

Click the cork to see a growing list of our auction donors/prizes and a link to the auction catalog.

cork		   Our 46th Annual Champagne Gala and Auction

Join The Lamplighters for our 46th annual Champagne Gala which will transport you around the world in a topsy-turvy Victorian steampunk reality game show with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Amazing Race Around the World in 79½ Days, or, If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Basingstoke. H.G. Wells has invented a machine that can bring literary characters to life - literally. Join some of your favorite authors, including Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, and, of course, W.S. Gilbert, as some of their most famous characters battle for the right to live in the real world. Along the way they’ll match their wits in competitions of dance, fashion, cooking and “love”, meeting an unexpected collection of people from the real world along the way.

As always, this much anticipated annual treat features original lyrics set to the music of Sir Arthur Sullivan, performed by many of your favorite Lamplighter singers. Come early to bid at the silent auction offering one-of-a-kind items, including a walk-on role in a future Lamplighters production. Join the cast after the show for a complimentary champagne reception.


Jules and Julia
HMS Pinafore

Mission Accomplished! We open the season in July, launching a sparkling production of the Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera hit, H.M.S. Pinafore. Audiences will board one of England’s great Navy ships where the beautiful Josephine must choose between marrying the First Lord of the Admiralty - with all of the wealth, prestige and power his title affords - or the "simple sailor, lowly born" who has won her heart. Gilbert devised the plot to make fun of patriotism, social class snobbery and incompetence in high places, and over 130 years later we can still laugh!

When Pinafore crossed the Atlantic to open in the U.S. in 1878 it was incredibly well received, becoming an instant sensation becoming their first blockbuster hit. In those days, however, copyright laws in the U.S. were barely in place and a mania of copycat productions were launched hot on the tail of the original with various levels of taste and skill. Many years later it is still one of the most popular operettas ever produced being one of the most-parodied musicals ever produced. Stage Director Jane Erwin Hammett and Conductor Brett Strader are at the ship's helm. This creative team plus their cast and orchestra will carry you off to as lively a Pinafore as exists today right from the opening notes of We sail the Ocean Blue. You won’t want to miss it. Oh and bring your "sisters and your cousins and your aunts!"

 

Hidden Treasures

CLOSED

An Afternoon of Extraordinary Music
to Benefit Artistic Excellence

Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club Montclair District, Oakland

Sunday May 22, 2011 at 4 pm

At Hidden Treasures, members of The Lamplighters company donate their time and talent to entertain us with music from a wide-ranging repertoire while raising money for the company’s most pressing artistic needs. They will also serve up some of your favorite Gilbert & Sullivan tunes as well as a delicious high tea, fine wines and special surprises.

Box office revenue covers less than half the cost of bringing wonderful G&S shows to life. Events like Hidden Treasures are absolutely essential to keep our company afloat. We invite you to attend Hidden Treasures and support our treasured artists.

To reserve your space call 415-227-4797 or book online through the Paypal link to the left.

Hidden Treasures 1
Hidden Treasures 2
 

2010 / 11

  

The Pirates of Penzance
Gala: You Can't Bite City Hall
The Yeomen of the Guard
Trial by Jury with Gilbert's Engaged
 

2009 / 10

  

My Fair Lady
Gala: Star Drek - The Generation After That
Patience
The Mikado Singalong
 

2008 / 09

  

The Mikado
Gala: Mock The Vote
Iolanthe

 

2007 / 08

  

H.M.S. Pinafore
Gala: Harry Patter and the Willing Suspension of Disbelief
The Secret Garden
Gilbert & Sullivan: Straight Up, With a Twist!
 

2006 / 07

  

Ruddygore
Gala: Victoria's Secret
The Merry Widow
Carousel
 

2005 / 06

  

The Gondoliers
Gala: The Da Vinci Coda
The Pirates of Penzance
H.M.S. Pinafore Singalong
Showboat in Concert
 

2004 / 05

  

The Mikado
Gala: Lord of the Things
The Yeomen of the Guard
Candide in Concert
 

2003 / 04

  

Iolanthe
Gala: How to Succeed in Showbusiness
H.M.S. Pinafore
 

2002 / 03

  

Enter the Guardsman
The Pirates of Penzance
50th birthday bash
Princess Ida
 

2001 / 02

  

The Mikado
Gala: Sacre Bleu!
Patience
A Little Night Music

 

2000 / 01

  

With a Song in Our Hearts - A concert of American Operetta Highlights
H.M.S. Pinafore
Gala: Greece, the Musical
The Gondoliers

 

1999 / 00

  

My Fair Lady
Gala: Apocalypse Later
Ruddygore

 

1998 / 99

  

A Song to Sing, O!
The Pirates of Penzance
Gala: The Sleeping Beauty of Savoy
Of Thee I Sing
 

1997

  

The Mikado
Make-It-Yourself, Sing-It-Yourself The Mikado
Where's Charley?
The Yeomen of the Guard
Gala: Trial by Jury Duty

 

1996

  

Iolanthe
H.M.S. Pinafore
The Sorcerer
Gala: Buttercup Gap Revisited
 

1995

  

The Pirates of Penzance
Rosencrantz & Guilderstern's Excellent Adventure
 Patience
Gala: She Virtually Loves Me

 

1994

  

The Mikado
 La Perichole
Princess Ida
Gala: Lights, Camera, Murder
H.M.S. Pinafore Singalong

 

1993

  

Sir Arthur Sullivan's 150th Birthday Concert
H.M.S. Pinafore
Hello Dolly
The Gondoliers
Gala: The Phantom of the Operetta, Part Deux
 

1992

  

Iolanthe
My Fair Lady
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Pirates of Penzance Singalong
A Tribute to Sir Arthur Sullivan
Gala: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern’s Excellent Adventure
 

1991

  

The Merry Widow
The Pirates of Penzance
Ruddygore
Gala: Star Dreck, the Operetta
 

1990

  

The Mikado
Something's Afoot
Patience
Gala: Major General Hospital, the Next Generation
 

1989

  

Trial by Jury and H.M.S. Pinafore
Princess Ida
Die Fledermaus
Gala: The Ballad of Buttercup Gap
 

more coming soon

© Lamplighters Music Theatre, 2012