1977 a season of gilbert sullivan

Gaiety Theatre Dublin D irectors Eamonn Andrews, Lorcan Bourke. Fred O’Donovan.

Dermod Cafferky. Joe Kearns. Tom Walsh.

Rathmines & Rathgar Musical Society

presents

A Season of Gilbert & Sullivan Operas

For two weeks commencing Monday, November, 14th 1977

w A GAIETY EVENING FIRST ACT Meet in the Gaiety. Have a drink in comfort before the show.

Bars open 7.30 p.m. Order and pay for drinks for the interval.

INTERVAL Your drinks are ready and waiting for you at your table.

You’re saved time and trouble.

ENCORE Relax after the show.

Have a drink. The bars are always open for half an hour after curtain fall.

FINALE ■ AiiiiUU

trust y °u en!°Yed your Gaiety evening

nnmp anain come again!I

Licenced Bars on all Floors.

GAIETY

THEATRE

Resident Manager: JOE KEARNS

Tel. 771717

COMMENCING NOVEMBER, 14, 1977

Rathmines & Rathgar Musical Society presents

The Pirates o f Penzance PRECEDED BY

Cox and Box Monday 14th; Wednesday 16th; Friday 18th; Saturday 19th (M atinee); Tuesday 22nd; Thursday 24th; Saturday 26th November, 1977

The Gondoliers Tuesday 15th; Thursday 17th; Saturday 19th; Monday 21st; Wednesday 23rd; Friday 25th; Saturday 26th (Matinee) November, 1977 Musics! Director: COMDT. FRED O’CALLAGHAN Chorus M aster: HEATHER HEWSON Choreographer: DOLORES DELAHUNTY Settings: GAIETY THEATRE WORKSHOP

Entire Production by NORMAN MEADMORE

For Rathmines & Rathgar Musical Society

Hon. General Secretary : PATRICK CAMPBELL Hon. Business Secretary : SEAN HOGAN Hon. Treasurer : MICHAEL FORDE Wardrobe Master : PAT LAWLOR Wardrobe Mistress : CYNTHIA TAYLOR Booking Secretary : FRED TAYLOR Stage Director : DAPHNE MILLAR Assisted by : CLODAGH FOLEY Public Relations : GLADYS MacNEVIN Costumes designed by KOTCHIE BOURKE-PATTON and executed by P. J. BOURKE & CO., DAME STREET Party Booking E nq u irie s: FRED TAYLOR, “ Dartry” , Ardtona Avenue, Dublin 14.

Te le ph on e : 981249

For Gaiety Theatre

Stage M anager: Paddy Jones Assistant Stage M anager: George McFall Stage Lighting : Sean Burke

CREDITS

W rought Iron C hairs and Table by PAUL SEXTON, Cabinteely.

Drum by W ALTON'S MUSICAL GALLERIES

Cox and Box

by F. C. BURNAND Music by SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN Cast James John Cox A Journeyman Hatter BRENDAN McSHANE John James Box A Journeyman Printer JOE LANE Sergeant Bouncer A lodging house keeper with military reminiscences MAURICE O’SULLIVAN

Scene : A Lodging House room

COX AND BOX It was the year 1870, before Gilbert and Sullivan met. F. 0. Burnand was editor of Punch and one day he suggested to Sullivan that he would write the music for a burlesque he had himself written for an amateur company. Sullivan agreed, al­ though he was not being paid fo r it.

Cox and Box was the result of their jo in t efforts.

It immediately became popular, and made a lot of money for charitable causes.

It is a delightful trifle of engaging sim plicity about the wily Bouncer who lets his one room to two different people, and has difficulty in dis­ entangling himself from the problem when they both meet.

This was last produced by the R and R in 1957.

The Pirates of Penzance Cast Major General Stanley

PAT CAMPBELL

The Pirate King

TOM STUART

Samuel (his lieutenant) Frederic (the pirate apprentice)

HENRY KENNEDY CAMILLUS MOUNTAINE EDDIE GUILMARTIN

Sergeant of Police General Stanley’s daughters: Mabel

EVELYN DOWLING

Edith

DOLORES BARRY

Kate

DYMPNA CUMMINS

Isabel

MICHELE O’BYRNE

Ruth (a pirate maid of all work)

LUCY LANE

Chorus of Pirates, Police and General Stanley’s daughters: Ed Delaney; Brendan O'Brien; Denis Leahy; Larry Shelley; Robin Fitzgerald; Noel Lawlor; John Murphy; Declan Murphy; Brendan Galvin; Brendan Dempsey; John O’Carroll; John Duggan; Robert Hayes; Fred Taylor; David Barry; Barney Gorman; John Whelan; Tim Devlin.

Maura Cox; Margaret Coyle; Sheila Molloy; Yvonne Russell; Mary McCann; Shirley McCambridge; Marie Culliton; Eva Staveley; Dympna Egar; Ena Boylan; Doreen Sheridan; Maureen Kane; Rosannagh Lucas-Clements; Marian Finn; Margaret Dickson; Anne Gorman.

Scenes: Act 1

A rocky seashore on the coast, of Cornwall.

Act 2

A ruined chapel by moonlight.

The Gondoliers Cast Duke of Plaza Toro ED BRADY Duchess of Plaza Toro Don Alhambra del Bolero Marco Palmieri Giuseppe Palmieri Tessa Gianetta

HEATHER HEWSON BRENDAN McSHANE FRANK KENNEDY FRED GRAHAM MONA CONROY BARBARA GRAHAM

Luiz

PAT ROCHE

Casilda

RUTH DODD

Antonio

PETER LEWIS

Francesco

BRIAN QUINLAN

Giorgio

NOEL BYRNE

Annibale

SEAN HOGAN

Fiametta

JOAN CAVANAGH

Vittoria

MARY LARKIN

Giulia

NUALA KEALY

Drummer Boy Inez

DESMOND O’SULLIVAN GLYNIS CASSON

Chorus of Contadine and Gondolier!: Angela McBrien; Pat Moore; Dodo O’Hagan; Mary Neville; Michele O’Byrne; Judith O’Brien; Mary Sue Moore; Jennifer Patterson; Pauline Woods; Imelda Bradley; Sally Young; Ann Crossan; Emer O’Sullivan; Eva Staveley.

Paschal Walshe; Ed Delaney; David Barry; Larry Shelley; Jim Butler; Noel Dillon; John Murphy; Dom Carroll; John Ryan; John Madden; David Beddy; Ken Watters; Tim Devlin.

S cen e s: Act 1 Act 2

The Piazzetta, Venice.

A Pavilion in the Palace of Barataria.

COMMENCING DECEMBER, 26th 1977 Grand Christmas Pantomime

Maureen Potter IN

RED RIDING HOOD WITH FULL SUPPORTING COMPANY

PRICES: From December 26,1977 to January 2,1978 Dress Circle £2.50; Parterre £2; Front Circle £1.50; Back Circle £1.

Matinees : Dress Circle £2; Parterre £1.50; Front Circle £1; Back Circle 50p.

From January 3,1978 Dress Circle £2; Parterre £2 and £1.75; Front C ircle £1.50; Back Circle 75p.

Saturday Evenings : Dress Circle £2.50; Parterre £2; Front Circle £1.50; Back Circle £1.

Matinee : Dress Circle £1.50; Parterre £1.25; Front Circle £1; Back Circle 50p.

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE This was the fifth in the series of Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Its first performance was on 31, December, 1879 in the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York. The usual near-disasters accompanied its launching. The distinguished partners had sailed for New York to investigate the pirating in Amer­ ica of their previous work, H.M.S. Pinafore.

Before leaving England, Gilbert had completed the libretto fo r The Pirates, and Sullivan had written the songs for the second act, and had sketched out a number of songs fo r the first act.

Arriving in New York, he discovered that he had left the first act material behind him, and so had to re-write from memory. His band also were troublesome and considering that The Pirates came under the heading of Grand Opera, asked for a higher rate of pay. However, when he offered to wire to England ‘for a less sensitive orchestra’, they quickly agreed to his terms.

Sullivan completed the overture only hours before the opening performance. That evening, although more dead than alive, he conducted with his usual flair, and T h e Pirates of Penzance swept New York off its feet’. After the first English production at the Opera Comique on April 3, 1880, the show settled down to a run of more than 400 performances.

The scene is set in Cornwall and concerns a band of rather amiable pirates, who are not nearly so dangerous as they first appear. One of them is Frederic, an apprentice, who is due to leave, having attained his majority. He has learned from Ruth, the pirate maid of all work, that he should never have been apprenticed to a pirate, but to a pilot. Along comes the sprightly Major General Stanley, with a bevy of beautiful daugh­ ters with one of whom, Mabel, Frederic immedi­ ately falls in love. The Major General’s patter song has always been regarded as being a partic­ ularly fine example of G ilbert’s art, and Mabel’s ‘Poor Wandering One’ the most demanding in its coloratura style.

Highlights of the second act are the famous policem an’s chorus and the lovely duet ‘Ah, leave me not to pine alone’ sung by Mabel and Frederic.

This opera was last produced by the R and R in 1965.

THE GONDOLIERS This very popular and well known opera was given its first performance on December 7, 1889, the eleventh in the series of Gilbert and Sullivan operas. It is reported that ‘this first night was the most brilliant of all their first nights and that at the close the company received an ovation that could be heard outside, above the roar of the Strand’.

It is the love story of two gondoliers and their pretty wives, and of the ir entanglement with the Duke and Duchess of Plaza Toro and their ‘beauti­ ful daughter, Casilda’, whose affections, however, are already engaged by her father’s drummer boy, Luiz. Two duets between these tw o are among the most tuneful that Sullivan has written. The famous ‘Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes’ is a high­ light of the second act, sung by Marco, one of the gondoliers.

Several delightful quartets are also in the score, notably the elegant Gavotte in the second act, and some of the gayest and most exuberant music of all the operas.

It was also responsible for an unusual acknow­ ledgement of each other’s work, when at the end of the first performance, Gilbert thanked Sullivan and said ‘the opera gives one the chance of shining right through the twentieth century with a reflected lig h t’.

One must agree that he spoke the truth.

G. MacN.

COMMENCING MONDAY MARCH 6, 1978 Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society presents IRISH PREMIERE OF

"G IG I" Book and Lyrics by ARTHUR JAY LERNER Music by FREDERICK LOEWE

KINGS

LOUNGE

Food and Drink at KINGS Directly across th e road from this theatre is the m ost attractive lounge in Dublin KINGS There you can enjoy superb food and drink in a luxurious Edwardian atm osphere you will b e very w elcom e at KINGS

HAPPY FAMILIES TAKE A

Palm

Grove Delicious Ice Cream Now on Sale in this Theatre

wpixm TOERICWS BQimQieE

open apickTUC UJOU (coaow mmo.

cO

The only g e n u in e A m erican H am burger in Ireland.

First Floor, G rafton C ourt, G rafton St., Dublin 2.