Event Information

The Connecticut Gilbert and Sullivan Society will be performing Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. Show dates and times are Saturday, October 17th, 2:00PM and 7:30PM and Sunday, October 18th, 2:00PM. All performances are at Valley Regional H.S., 256 Kelsey Hill Road, Deep River, CT. This is a fully staged production with costumes and sets, full choruses and choreography, and accompanied by a professional orchestra.

When Frederick was a little boy, his hard of hearing nursemaid, Ruth, misunderstanding instructions from Frederic's father to apprentice his son to a pilot, instead mistakely apprencticed him to a pirate. Afraid to break the bad news to Frederick’s father, she decided to stay with Frederick and join the pirates as a piratical maid of all work.

Year’s later we find Frederic, now a man of 21, on a Cornwall beach with his pirate buddies and Ruth. All are celebrating his birthday, the end of his indentures, and his installment as a full-blown member of the pirate band. But Frederic tells them he has decided to give up piracy and rejoin polite society. He goes on to explain that although he has grown very fond of all of them, he despises what they do and, now free, intends to exterminate them. The Pirate King and crew are very sad to learn this. But they wish him well in his new life and bid Ruth to join him.

Leaving together, Ruth suggests that the two of them get married. But having been at sea his entire life, Frederic has not seen any female other than Ruth and wonders whether she is beautiful and the catch that she claims to be. Just as it appears that she has persuaded him, he spies a bevy of lovely young women, each more beautiful than the next, making their way to the beach. Absolutely gob smacked he realizes that Ruth has deceived him and he sends her away. When the ladies arrive, he introduces himself to them. He tells them that he had been a pirate up until this morning, and entreaties that one of them please join him and help him to live a pure and blameless life. Shocked at the very idea, the ladies all reject his plea, until one of the sisters, Mabel (laying eyes on the handsome young man) "unselfishly" decides to volunteer herself to the cause.

Mabel and Frederic rejoice at having found one anotherand the happy couple make plans to marry. But their happiness is short-lived, and seems doomed, when Frederic learns from the Pirate King and Ruth that through a strange twist of fate, he is not free of his indentures after all and is now duty bound to rejoin them.

Fear not however, W.S. Gilbert once again manages to introduce an additional plot twist that reunites Mabel and Frederic and allows the hapless pirates to give up piracy and rejoin polite society.

Venue details: Valley Regional High School, 256 Kelsey Hill Road, Deep River, Connecticut, 06417, United States

Prices:
Adult (At the door): USD 35.00,
Adult (Advance sale): USD 30.00,
Student: USD 15.00

Time: 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM