Pirates Of Penzance

Watching the "Owning" of the roles by Kevin Kline and Rex Smith gives an inspiration to any and all performers in every mode of entertainment. They are two well groomed and fantastic actors whose careers in Stage performance overshadow many others. Kevin Kline is a brilliant actor with a long career. I have included two sites below for Rex and Kevins history.

For more info on Rex http://www.rexsmith.com/index.php

For More Info On Kevin Kline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Kline

If you have not yet treated yourself to this marvelous production in the living theatre, a must see movie production with Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt needs to be on your agenda. :) A Fun, upbeat viewing for many as they watched actor and actress come into charachter, "showboating" and capturing the attention of young and old alike. Many thanks for these videos for capturing the moments, but the full length movie is just what is needed for some outstanding entertainment value =)

The Pirates Of Penzance or the Slave of Duty is a comic Opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan, its one of the Savoy Operas. The official premiere was in NY at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. The London Premier Of Pirates Of Penzance was on April 3, 1880 at theOpera Comique and it ran for 363 performances. In New York, it had already played for 3 months.

"The Papp production was turned into a film (released in 1983), with all of the original Broadway cast reprising their roles, except that Angela Lansbury replaced Estelle Parsons as Ruth. The film was not a success, but, according to the IMDB, this "had nothing to do with the reviews, which were often quite positive. The real problem lay with Universal's decision to release the film simultaneously to SelecTV and to theaters. Theater owners were so angry that they boycotted the film; in the end, only 92 theaters agreed to show it, and it enjoyed a long run at only one of them."The film has been shown occasionally on television. Another film based loosely on the opera, The Pirate Movie was released during the Broadway run."

Penzance - What To Do And Where To Go When You Stay In Penzance

By Arthur Townsends

Located at the southern tip of Cornwall, Penzance is well worth exploring. The word Penzance actually means "Holy Headland" in the native Cornish language and is a reminder that the town stands close to where the chapel of St Anthony stood over a thousand years ago. Although people have lived in Penzance since at least the Bronze Age, its importance was recognized by King Henry IV, who granted the town the right to hold a Royal Market.

Located at the southern tip of Cornwall, Penzance is well worth exploring. The word Penzance actually means "Holy Headland" in the native Cornish language and is a reminder that the town stands close to where the chapel of St Anthony stood over a thousand years ago.

Although people have lived in Penzance since at least the Bronze Age, its importance was recognized by King Henry IV, who granted the town the right to hold a Royal Market.

Although it was once a major fishing town, Penzance now caters mainly for the tourist trade. Most of the town is subject to strict planning rules, so its character has been preserved without the blight of too many modern buildings and signage. Although the poet Sir John Betjeman disagreed with that last statement - he thought that the town's character had been blighted.

As befits the area, there is a midsummer festival in Penzance called the Golowan Festival. After a lapse at the end of the 1800s, the ancient customs of the golowan Festival have been revived, including lighting fires and setting off fireworks to celebrate the midsummer solstice. You can also witness street artists and see the whole town decked with greenery and other decorations. The popularity of the festival means that Penzance now attracts thousands of visitors at that time of year, so be sure to book your hotel room early if you are planning to visit Penzance at the time of the festival.

Opera fans will want to check out Penzance. As you'd expect from the title, it was the setting for the Gilbert and Sullivan opera "The Pirates of Penzance". In modern times, you can watch plays at the local Acorn Theatre, which also shows films and hosts dance music and cabaret.

Despite their name, the Penzance Pirates rugby team are now located in nearby Camborne and have therefore been renamed the Cornish Pirates.

On a more exotic note, the solo transatlantic yacht race called the Mini Transat 6.50, so called because the maximum boat length is 6.5 metres, starts its journey in alternate years from Penzance harbour.

Whether you choose to stay in Penzance itself or would prefer to use one of the many Cornish villages nearby, there are plenty of places that you can stay. These range from small, family run bed and breakfasts, often located in farms and other rustic locations, through to the larger guest houses which give you many of the facilities of a hotel but the warm welcome associated with Penzance's landladies. Or if you prefer, you can choose one of Penzance's larger hotels. Whichever of these you decide on, you can be assured of a warm Cornish welcome and the hospitality associated with it.

When you stay in Penzance, be sure to check this widerange of Penzance Guest Houses.

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Setting History Straight

By David Koblick

For contrary to popular belief, the series of light 

operettas commonly attributed to Gilbert and Sullivan 

were in effect written by the pair of nonentities 

named above, Artie being the melodist and Will the 

versifier.

Have you ever heard the name Will Schwenk? Or the 

name Artie Seymour? Probably not. But you will, 

you will, when the word gets around about how 

these two inglorious talents were by-passed, how 

they missed being touched by the magic wand of Fate. 

For contrary to popular belief, the series of light 

operettas commonly attributed to Gilbert and Sullivan 

were in effect written by the pair of nonentities 

named above, Artie being the melodist and Will the 

versifier.

Gilbert had also dabbled in versifying; his cynical 

Bab Ballads had caused a minor stir a couple of years 

earlier, but the man had no real talent. Sullivan 

likewise had plunked out a few tunes on his clavichord, 

melodies, if one could call them that, on a qualitative 

par with "Chopsticks." The consequence that Sullivan 

and Gilbert have always been credited with the fabrication 

of Ruddigore, Pinafore and a dozen other popular puerilities 

came about through a curious chain of circumstances.

Schwenk and Seymour were eking out a precarious living 

in Soho, London's "Tin Pan Alley" of its day, writing 

ballads and comedy routines to be sung and performed in 

the sleazy music halls at that time ubiquitous in The 

City. One day the inseparable Gilbert and Sullivan, both 

gentlemen of quality-but also scoundrels, as will be 

seen-were slumming along Carnaby Street when through 

an open window they chanced to hear Seymour and Schwenk 

in the throes of composition. The two were concocting a 

humorous playlet supposedly set in Morning Court, with a 

parade of panderers, prostitutes, and their pettifogger-

solicitors passing before the judge, singing and acting 

out their diverse woeful tales.

The eavesdroppers stood by, taking copious notes and 

committing a good earful to memory. They then retired 

to the Music Room of their club, and by dint of a few 

ingenious switcheroos and an abundance of gall, came 

up with their first opus, the well-known Trial by Jury. 

It was not mere coincidence that in this year of 1875 

the element Gallium was discovered by the French chemist 

Lecoq de Boisbaudran.

No, scratch that-perhaps there was no connection between 

the two events. In attempting to set history straight, 

one is occasionally touched by mild paranoia.

It was extremely bad form for two well-dressed gentlemen 

to be seen loitering about Soho streets and alleys for 

hours on end, and it wasn't until the invention of the 

microphone in 1877 that the two plagiarists were able 

to upgrade their method of filching Will's and Artie's 

dramatic themes and catchy music-hall melodies. Posing 

as a pair of itinerant quill-pen inspectors, they 

persuaded the gullible landlord of the Schwenk-Seymour 

flat to let them in while the two were absent. 

They quickly installed a "bugging" device (probably the 

first instance of Edison's invention being put to such 

use), leading its wires to a nearby flat they had rented 

for just such an eventuality.

Will Schwenk and Artie Seymour continued to grind out 

clever satires, parodies, melodies and patter-songs for 

the insatiable but poorly-paying music-hall trade. A 

few yards away Sullivan and Gilbert listened intently, 

and then rewrote, revised and disguised the arduously-earned 

creations of the talented pair. H.M.S. Pinafore, The 

Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe and Princess 

Ida followed one another in almost annual succession, 

elevating G and S to the pinochle of success, if one 

may be permitted a small witticism at this point.

It must be emphasized that although the Gilbert and 

Sullivan operettas were immensely popular and widely 

publicized among the middle and upper classes of 

society-even among the nobility-Schwenk and Seymour 

did not move in those genteel circles, nor did the 

raucous but appreciative audiences who patronized the 

various music halls and amusement centers where the 

latter's compositions were being staged. In 1885 the 

game came close to discovery when a discerning critic, 

after a night of pub-crawling, remarked in his newspaper 

column on the similar melodic line in The Mikado's "I've 

Got a Little List" and one of the ditties in Schwenk and 

Seymour's Bums and Bangers. Fortunately-or unfortunately, 

depending on one's sympathies-no budding Sherlock Holmes 

tracked the clue to its source.

Ah, Fame! Impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte was so enthused 

that he built a theatre, the Savoy, exclusively for the 

presentation of G-and-S operettas. Several companies of 

players traveled throughout the English-speaking world, 

and every performance was a sell-out. The works were 

easily translated into other languages; the plots were 

simple, the tunes hummable, and the patter-songs lent 

themselves readily to other tongues. On one signal date 

there were 148 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas being 

performed simultaneously (aside from time differences) 

in fourteen languages in theatres all around the world.

The money rolled in, augmenting the personal fortunes 

of the two cultural swindlers, but none of it trickled 

down to the actual fabricators of this immensely popular 

frothy pabulum, Seymour and Schwenk, who continued their 

daily efforts to make ends meet. Daily the results of 

their endeavors were siphoned off by G and S.

Ruddigore, Yeomen of the Guard, and The Gondoliers followed 

The Mikado, but by 1889 the two so-called gentlemen, now 

both wealthy and portly, had wearied of the years-long 

talent-embezzlement, and decided to desist. Gilbert turned 

his efforts to the construction of children's mechanical 

toys, most notably the Erector Set. Sullivan wrote "The 

Lost Chord" and the dirgelike music to Sabine Baring-Gould's 

hymn "Onward Hebrew Soldiers" (-Marching as to war/With the 

Star of David/Going on before, etc.), although Ms 

Baring-Gould, under strong pressure from the Church 

of England, was induced to revise the title and lyrics 

of the latter work.

Will Schwenk and Artie Seymour died in Obscurity, a small 

industrial town in the Midlands, never having discovered 

nor even suspected the thefts of their labors over that 

fifteen-year period.

* * * * *

Author's Note: For the musical-knowledge-deprived, Sir 

William Schwenk Gilbert and Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan 

were in fact the actual lyricist and composer, 

respectively, of the named operettas.

by David Koblick

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