NY Gilbert & Sullivan Players Present IOLANTHE

The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players, America's preeminent professional Gilbert & Sullivan repertory company, will present its fall production Iolanthe November 7 & 8 at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place).

For your convenience, we are offering the following dates for your review:

> Saturday, November 7th (2PM & 7:30 PM)
> Sunday, November 8th (3PM)

Iolanthe will feature the young patter man James Mills in the demanding role of the Lord Chancellor, who is at the same time funny, fatherly, and conflicted. He is supported by a pair of youthful NYGASP veterans, Daniel Greenwood and Matthew Wages as two mindless peers of the realm - Lords Tolloller and Mountararat. Veterans David Macaluso (Arcadian shepherd Strephon, who is half a fairy) and Laurelyn Watson Chase (ward in Chancery Phyllis who wants to know "which half") provide the love interest. Angela Christine Smith will play the imposing, but vulnerable, Queen of the Fairies who resists the temptation of falling in love with forbidden fruit in the form of dashing Private Willis - a sentry on duty outside the House of Lords, played by bass David Wannen. In the title role of fairy mother figure Iolanthe, Erika Person will use her mezzo voice and sincere acting strength to bring to life one of the most moving moments in all of the Gilbert & Sullivan canon.

Albert Bergeret stage directs and conducts the large cast and orchestra, with able co-direction and choreography by David Auxier. The pastoral and urban London settings are by Jack Garver, with lighting by Benjamin Weill. Costumes, including authentic replicas of ceremonial robes worn by British Lords, are by Gail J. Wofford.

The burning question in Iolanthe, or The Peer and the Peri is, can a man who is half a fairy find happiness in a world where to marry a mortal is a capital crime? No this is not an indictment of gay marriage or the death penalty but a fanciful Victorian tale about a band of spritely females with "fairy brains" who "never grow old", the stodgy male House of Peers who rejoice that they "are persons of no capacity whatever", and confused "half a fairy" Strephon - the fellow who is literally caught in the middle. Could anyone wonder that this gentleman's lady friend wants to know "which half"? Gilbert's commentary on the human condition was never pithier while Sullivan's effervescent score evokes the conflict between the balletic fairies and the martial peers as well as the more serious motherly love of the title character. Last, but not least, Iolanthe also features the Lord Chancellor - an elderly gentlemen whose conflicting emotions as widower, would be lover, legal guardian, father figure, judge, and legislator play out in the course of three classic patter songs, including his delightfully convoluted tongue twister known as the "Nightmare Song".

When the Fairy Queen's best friend, Iolanthe, returns to fairyland after a 25 year banishment for having married a mortal, she tells her fairy sisters that she has a son, Strephon, a man who has the mixed blessing of being half a fairy. When Strephon is thwarted in his attempts to marry the beautiful Phyllis by a group of stodgy politicians from the House of Lords and a deliciously conflicted Lord Chancellor, he calls upon the supernatural powers of his newly discovered "aunts". The ensuing impasse results in a riotous battle of the sexes which cannot be resolved until Iolanthe, following her motherly instincts, puts her life on the line to reveal that the Lord Chancellor is her husband and Strephon's father. But all fairy tales have happy endings, so the fairy law is amended, allowing everyone to get married and perhaps change their minds afterwards. As Strephon says, "That's the usual course!"