Merrie England

Music by Edward German
Libretto by Basil Hood
The Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company, March 2019

This show was cursed.

But it was also a blast. This marked my second year associate directing with GSOC, but offered a unique opportunity as compared to our usual Gilbert & Sullivan operettas – this show is a ghost, and almost never produced, so we were starting from a very clean slate. As such, Shane and I (and our wonderfully talented choreographer, Emily Kleeman) had the freedom and responsibility to assemble something with very little historical precedent to draw from.

Building on my experience with Patience, I contributed a lot more original choreography and staging to this show. I was feeling much more settled in my role as an associate director, more comfortable in trusting my instincts in the medium of musical storytelling, and knowing that the reality we were crafting was one that would prove cohesive.

If the work of coordinating the blocking of three creatives and molding it into a cohesive whole with a cast of 30 wasn’t enough, going into tech, our lead tenor (among a few others) was struck with a terrible illness and left unable to sing. In a feat that was equally exhilarating and terrifying, I ended up singing for them from the pit, while they walked the blocking and performed the scenes onstage. In the end, the performances went well, and this odd duck of an operetta had its chance to seen by an American audience.