The newly formed Coast Music Theatre Company last week raised the curtain on a new era of full-length musical comedies for the Sunshine Coast. The group’s debut community production, The Pirates of Penzance, opened to a capacity audience and a standing ovation at St. John’s United Church in Davis Bay on March 1.
Tickets for the show and six subsequent performances sold out in early February.
Three longtime collaborators — Sara Douglas (director), Sylvain Brochu (choreographer) and Tom Kellough (music director) — who together produced a decade of student musicals for School District 46, late last year determined to build an all-ages musical theatre tradition on the Sunshine Coast. The trio plans to mount annual community productions and a semi-professional show each summer.
“Most of our performers are adults, not children,” said Brochu. “They practice more at home. But as with the teens, it’s a process. We had a new format, a shorter period of time [to prepare], and limitations with the stage, so there are always adjustments.”
The 35-member cast includes preteens, septuagenarians, and all generations in between. The Coast Reporter’s arts writer even appears in a supporting part.
“What makes it so much fun is the diversity of the cast,” said Susan Blockberger, a pirate who also sings with the Suncoast Phoenix Community Choir. “There are young kids and older people, and that’s really a joy.”
Father and daughter Joshua and Olive Boyd auditioned for roles, and were assigned to duelling units of pirates and maidens. “I wasn’t quite sure what we were getting into,” said Joshua. “I was in a couple of plays in high school, but it’s been a long time.”
“It’s just really fun acting, especially in a musical,” added Boyd’s daughter Olive. “The second act is especially surprising.”
The English operetta, first performed in 1879, was created by composer Arthur Sullivan and librettist William Gilbert. Their restive collaboration over a quarter of a century produced 14 comic operas. The Pirates of Penzance was a commercial success upon its twin debuts in New York City and London.
The story concerns a pirate apprentice (played by Derry Oshust) who is finally released from his 21-year-long indentures to a Pirate King (Seth Little). As the apprentice’s onetime nursemaid (Janet Oxley) eyes her young charge with matrimonial interest, her scheme is interrupted by picnicking maidens headed by the affectionate and eligible Mabel (Jennifer MacInnes). A conflict ensues between the pirates and the maidens’ ward, Major General Stanley (Mike Cronk). He is aided by a group of apprehensive police with a fleet-footed sergeant (Gabriel Ditmars). Typical of Gilbert and Sullivan’s other works, the plot’s Gordian knot is finally undone through logical artifice and cunning wordplay.
For Cronk, who delivers a tongue-twisting patter song at breakneck speed to recapitulate the Major General’s breadth of knowledge, the show provided an opportunity to sport special raiment. He wears hand-embroidered robes presented to him in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where Cronk served in the course of career responsibilities with the BBC World Service.
The volunteer cast members together represent a broad swath of Sunshine Coast arts organizations. After acting in a Driftwood Players Halloween production, Corinna Savien felt ready to audition for the full-scale musical.
“And I think audiences are responding to the music,” Savien said. “Everything is appealing, but the music especially is high-quality.”
Music director Tom Kellough leads an onstage orchestra of four instrumentalists while accompanying the cast on piano. Some of the production’s most taxing vocals demand coloratura-style embellishment from soloists like Jennifer MacInnes, who alloys her skilful performance with comic touches.
“We’ve got some really great singers in this cast,” said Gabriel Ditmars. “Seeing someone singing, dancing and acting at the same time is something that Sunshine Coast audiences aren’t so used to seeing, and I don’t know if all the audience members were really expecting that.”
The Pirates of Penzance, which is co-produced with St. John’s United Church, will conclude with performances on March 8, 9 and 10. The last two shows will be streamed live via the Internet; details are online at coastmusictheatre.weebly.com.
