a swash buckling event at the College

The Pirates of Penzance or the Slave of Duty is ironic because all of Gilbert and Sullivan’s works are about duty, so the duty thing just comes with the territory. The show was made as just that: a colorful comedic operetta. This year it took the place of the classic musical for the Columbia College’s main stage season. It is rare to see this classic done by college students with such grace and understanding. It takes a certain talent pool to achieve the level, which was presented by this young group of actors.
Frederic is a reluctant pirate and Mabel is the daughter of a Major General.
A Pirate King, a hard-of-hearing nurse, a flock of beauties, a soft-hearted band of pirates, cowardly cops and the pinnacle of the Victorian Age conspire to tear them apart and bring them together in this comic operetta.
The musical is always the highlight of any theater company’s season, and Pirate’s is a great example. Director Stephaine Shaw took the presentational acting style of the Victorian era to a whole new extreme. ‘Flat’ face forward acting is almost on the edge of spoofing the classic operetta. The show itself looked like a large under taking, that was met head on. Clearly, more money than is usual was given to the show even in this time of budget cuts.
Color was the name of the game for this show, however it looked as if each of the designer and the director picked a different color. Set designer Bill Anderson stuck with the idea of flat presentation by adding three flat picture frame of varying sizes to break up the space and add a painterly picturesque quality to the show. Mr. Anderson stuck with a brown gold theme with splashes of blues. Lighting Jess Harpenau can be considered the colored glue that bound this production together, trying as hard as possible to tie in all the color of the other designer and make it her own by using almost the full rainbow. Faulty design Frances Maggio tackled the Major General and his band of daughters all in kaki. Just kaki; all nine girls all in kaki. To counter act the bland, young student designer Mel Berner costumed the Pirates in all rich color filled jewel tones. The show itself was a delight to watch and could have had a longer run than it did.
This is Shaw’s third year directing the musical main stage, therefore she must be doing something worth seeing or they would not ask this artist in residence back. She and what looks like a very tight knit cast and production team took this classic added the modern twists and flares and hit it out of the park. It’s a shame if you missed this show that played at the Getz stage of Columbia College this spring.