Review: H.M.S PINAFORE at Milwaukee Opera Theatre
The production runs through October 12
By: Cathy Jakicic Oct. 09, 2025
Gilbert and Sullivan's collaborations have stood the test of time for more than than 100 years. Milwaukee Opera Theatre and UWM Theatre's collaboration on the legendary duo's "H.M.S. Pinafore" brings a saucy, modern flair (and a talented, lively cast) to the Victorian era comic opera.
The ship H.M.S. Pinafore is anchored off Portsmouth and is home to a fine captain and crew as well as a boatload of romantic entanglements. The captain's daughter, Josephine, (Serena Vasquez ) is in love with the humble sailor, Ralph Rackstraw, (Josh Thone). But Captain Corcoran (Austin Franz) wants her to marry the smitten Sir Joseph Porter, the First Lord of the Admiralty (Nathaniel Contreras). Will the loves — requited, socially unwise and otherwise — survive the rough waters of Victorian Society's class system? What will sweet little Buttercup (Shannon Knowski) and Dick Dead Eye (Ryder Ruck) have to say about all this?
These answers will remain unrevealed here, but what we can say is that this adaptation of "PInafore" (another collaboration - this time among co-director Jill Anna Ponasik and Jeffrey Moser, music director Donna Kummer and the cast) involves the audience at every opportunity and engages them with humorous Milwaukee and modern popculture references that would have certainly confused G&S - but of which they still would have surely approved.
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