The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company (GSVLOC) has been quite busy this year. Thanks to them I’ve now seen a more traditional production of “The Yeoman of the Guard,” and an extremely non-traditional production of “The Pirates of Penzance” in less than nine months. The first thing I realized upon sitting down to see the latter show was that, unlike most other folks in the audience around me, I had no frame of reference as to just how different this production was going to be because I’ve actually never seen the original unadapted version of “The Pirates of Penzance.”
“Let us shut our eyes and talk about the weather!”
Like a lot of people, I’ve heard the tune and some of the lyrics (or parodies) of the patter song “I am the very model of a modern Major General,” but that’s about it. So this was, you’ll forgive the pun, a new frontier for me. And since GSVLOC just staged “Pirates” a few years ago back in 2022, they decided this time to go the revised and re-conceived route. Instead of pirates sailing the seas during the time of 19th century England’s Queen Victoria, we get the “prairie pirates” (say that five times fast) out in the “Old West” of 19th century America after the end of the Civil War.
“This evening I renounce my vile profession.”
Looking at a detailed plot synopsis elsewhere, this production does keep the overall framework of the plot and its various threads in place. It’s just transposing the story into an entirely different locale, while keeping it in the same general time period. And “The Pirates of Penzance” wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously in its original form, anyway. The pirates in both versions aren’t terribly threatening, and they are so kindhearted they are easily put off attacking someone if they learn they’re an orphan (mostly because all the pirates in this group are themselves orphans). Since word has gotten around, anyone who runs into this band of pirates quickly asserts their orphanhood in order to escape unharmed. The cops (turned into sheriffs here) are well-meaning but bumbling men who are easily scared away from conflict (so, definitely fictional).
“Oh false one, you have deceived me!”
A key turning point in the plot hinges on the idea of how literally a person takes leap year (is a person born on February 29th really only one year old when leap year comes around again in four years?). And the resolution of another conflict, which in the original hinged on allegiance to Queen Victoria and the idea of men born of status who strayed from society still being worthwhile underneath it all due to their class, here becomes an allegiance to the late president Abraham Lincoln and men’s status as former union soldiers during the Civil War.
“A paradox, a most ingenious paradox!”
This production also takes pains to divorce the idea of the Old West from actual historical fact. No, this is the Old West of Hollywood westerns, in particular musical comedies set in the Old West. So it’s very much “Old West” in quotation marks. There is a well-crafted and funny video that plays during the overture to set the tone and the historical context, such as it is, right up front. There’s not much they can do about the word “pirate.” It’s in the title and one of the show’s recognized selling points so they can’t ditch it entirely. But everything else in director Joe Andrews’ adaptation (he also created the overture film in partnership with Lee Stanford) switches things up so they fit the prairie/frontier setting and time period (with a big glossary in the program so as the jokes and spritely lyrics go flying by you can see they’re grounded in some nod to the history of the time).
“Your vulgar connubial jamboree!”
How successful this is depends on your suspension of disbelief. In the original, set in the United Kingdom, it wasn’t terribly surprising that the ensemble was almost exclusively white. In this version, the absence of even a mention or an appearance of anyone Native American is… a little weird. But again, they confess up front they’re trying to conjure a less complicated version of a story set during the time of American westward expansion. Throwing the idea of Manifest Destiny into the altered lyrics complicates that strategy for me, but your mileage may vary. (Don’t expect a pre-show acknowledgement that we gather on the stolen land of the Dakota people.)
“These easily deluded pirates…”
The romantic comedy of it all goes down this way: Frederic (Andrew Peterson) is celebrating his 21st birthday with his pirate friends, even though this milestone also means that he has completed his apprenticeship period with them, and is free to go do other non-pirate things as he pleases. The Pirate King (Seth Steidl) and his right-hand bandit/second in command Samuel (Mike Tober), both wish Frederic well, as does the rest of the pirate crew. Ruth (Lara Trujillo), Frederic’s middle-aged servant who raised him, is angling to follow him into a life of freedom.
“See to it that our deaths are as swift and painless as you can possibly make them.”
Prototypical cougar that she is, Ruth is hoping to convince young Frederic to marry her before he meets any other younger, perhaps prettier women. This hope is quickly dashed when a large family group of all women appears. This bevy of sisters (and mothers) is led by daughter Mabel (Maggie Benham), and her trio of closest siblings among the crowd, Edith (Mallory Downing), Kate (Lily Miller), and Isabel (Liza Hartshorn) - which conveniently make for great options in duets, trios and quartets. Frederic and Mabel naturally fancy one another at first sight.
“To live and die a pirate king!”
Of course these women wouldn’t be wandering around the wilderness unaccompanied, so it’s time for their father/husband to appear. General Stanley (Scott Benson) is the “modern major general” character. But the production wanted to provide a reason why and how the general could have so many daughters (here, well over a dozen). Now, you could just say, “well, it’s musical theater logic - there need to be enough young women to match up with all the pirates and/or deputies at the end so everyone can get married, don’t think too hard about it.” In this adaptation the answer was “Mormons.”
“Poor wandering one…”
After all, Mormons fought in the Civil War, and Mormons also struck out across the prairies in search of a new home where they could practice their religion free of persecution. So here, three of the older women in the female ensemble are costumed similarly as the general’s three wives. Because, you know, Mormon men have lots of wives, which would naturally lead to lots of daughters. And now he’s “the very model of a modern Mormon general.” All of which seems like a problematic solution for something that wasn’t really a problem that needed solving.
“They cannot bear to see their father weep.”
Then at the beginning of act two, the General is having a bit of an existential crisis on his ranch, complete with a ramshackle old church building in the distance and a graveyard stretched out before him. When he speaks about besmirching the honor of his ancestors, someone has to point out that (unlike if they were characters back in the England of the original), this can hardly be the burial place of their ancestors, they’re settling a new frontier. To which the General responds something along the lines of, well, when we bought this place, we bought the graveyard, too, so I now own a new set of ancestors. All of which just caused my brain to go off on a tangent on the desecration of Indian burial grounds for a while so… awkward.
“I object to pirates as sons-in-law.”
On the flip side of that, this scene also reminds me that throughout the production, Michael Hoover’s set design and backdrop paintings were really great. All that work setting the scene elevated the look of the show. I can never figure out how Carl Schoenborn’s lighting design in this auditorium space manages to keep everyone lit wherever they are, but still not washed out. It’s no simple task but he pulls it off every time. Again, Bronson Talcott’s costume design has them outfitting yet another army of actors - dozens of men and women, this time in period western garb, many of them getting multiple outfits for their multiple roles. Very nice touch that, after being banished by Frederic for looking like such a tired old hag, Ruth gets a real glow up for the next time we see her as a sexy antagonist, and in the end she lands herself the Sheriff (Waldyn Benbenek) in the final pairing off during the finale. Justice for Ruth! Also a quick shout out to props coordinator Christine Keller, for work that included procuring multiple tumbleweeds, many of which skitter and dance across the stage throughout the production. (I’m sure the General didn’t have a song and dance number with tumbleweeds in the original, but here I don’t mind the addition/adaptation.)
“I love you all with an affection unspeakable.”
As always with the GSVLOC, the singing voices, both leads and ensemble, are all stunning. There’s a lot of vocal talent crammed onto this stage. The scope of these productions is always impressive, from the dozens of performers onstage to the 30 live musicians sequestered somewhere just out of sight backstage (there's 60 listed in the program but I've been told that there's only 30 at any given performance; schedules being what they are, it's best to have plenty of musician backups at the ready to swap in and out as needed during a long run like this), all of them led by music director and conductor Dr. Randal A. Buikema, with an able assist from both assistant music director Jean Orbison Van Heel and orchestra manager/librarian Lorine Menzhuber. This company’s shows always sound amazing, and do great credit to the body of work Gilbert & Sullivan created for them to work with. And three cheers to stage manager Kevin Lindee and his assistants Nicki Price and Brianna Sullivan for keeping this enormous production moving along at a fast clip, it can’t be easy.
Five of the major male roles (General Stanley, The Pirate King, Frederic, Samuel, and the Sheriff) and one female role, Mabel, are double cast. There’s the Gilbert cast, which I saw for this review, and the Sullivan cast, where those roles are played, respectively, by Tom Berg, Eric Sorum, Graham Temple, Matt Polum, Scott Gorman, and Mary Kettlewell. Information on who plays which date is on the theater’s website.
The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company’s production of “The Pirates of Penzance” runs through November 22, 2026, performing at The Conn Theater at Plymouth Congregational Church (1900 Nicollet Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN). Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 7:30pm; Saturday and Sunday matinees are at 2pm. Tickets and further information on the production are available through GSVLOC’s website.
4 stars - Highly Recommended
(photo, left to right, Seth Steidl as the Pirate King, Andrew Peterson as Frederic, and Lara Trujillo as Ruth in “The Pirates of Penzance” - photography by Stephen Hage)
