New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players Begin 49th Season With PATIENCE

New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP) begins its expanded 49th season with its picturesque production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s classic send up of generational fads, Patience, not seen since 2017.  The repertory company will present 3 performances at New York’s Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College (68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues) on Saturday, October 28th and Sunday, October 29th.

Patience, or Bunthorne’s Bride might just as well be about Beatlemania or the current Swifties craze, but fads come and go and aesthetic poetry is all the rage of the day, especially among the maidens who have all become groupies of the self-styled poet Reginald Bunthorne – to the dismay of the macho military men whose brash and bold military behavior and bright red Dragoon Guard uniforms are out of favor with their former love interests.  Only Patience, the virtuous village milkmaid, who doesn’t understand the current fad, claims to have never loved anyone.  She doesn’t care for poetry much either, and, as it turns out, neither does Bunthorne himself!  Another pretentious poet, Archibald Grosvenor, appeals to Patience, but in the end the aesthetic fad is repudiated and being common becomes the new celebrity, proving that every generation has its own temporary insanity!

The NYGASP production of Patience has been in the Company’s repertory for over 40 years.  The New York Times called this production “Terrific…Vibrant...Genuinely Uproarious!  A pointed lampoon of the 19th century aesthetic movement”.  Patience had the second longest original run in the history of the G&S canon and paved the way for their biggest hit, The Mikado, which NYGASP will present in January 2024.  Oscar Wilde, himself a proponent of the aesthetic movement, appreciated the satire of Patience and toured the US preparing American audiences for the show’s first run on this side of the pond.

The show will feature a cast of talented NYGASP veterans and new Company members bringing this treasured production back to life.  Audiences will be entertained by Sullivan’s score which brilliantly evokes the contrasting elements while Gilbert’s clever text makes a hysterical mockery of all the pretentious characters.  The rival poets Bunthorne and Grosvenor will be played by long time NYGASP colleagues James Mills and David Macaluso, while Sarah Caldwell Smith returns to one of her signature roles as Patience.  The Dragoon officers are played by Company stalwarts tenor Cameron Smith and baritones Matthew Wages and David Auxier.  Aesthetic maidens are played by veteran alto Amy Maude Helfer, and new comer sopranos Caitlin Borek and Sophie Thompson, while comedic Lady Jane is portrayed by Hannah Holmes in her first appearance with NYGASP in a major role.  The rest of the ensemble is rounded out by Samuel Balzac, Caitlin Belcik, Michael Connolly, Vicky Devany, Hannah Eakin, Camilo Estrada, Katie Hall, Rebecca Hargrove, Alexandra Imbrosci-Viera, Andrew Klima, Dana Kluczyk, Patrick Lord-Remmert, John Charles McLaughlin, Lance Olds, Logan Pitts, and Helen Jane Planchet.

Founder and Artistic Director Albert Bergeret, recent recipient of a Legend of Off-Broadway award for nearly 50 years of achievement, directs and conducts the full orchestra with choreography by multi-talented David Auxier.

Performance schedule is as follows:

Saturday, October 28 at 2:00pm* & 7:30pm

*Family Overture: Musical introduction and plot summary made entertaining for the entire family (12:45 in theatre prior to the Saturday afternoon performance)

Sunday, October 29 at 3:00pm