New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players (NYGASP) is a professional repertory theatre company, based in New York City, that has specialized in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan for more than 50 years. It performs an annual season in New York City and tours throughout the year in North America. Its founding artistic director is Albert Bergeret, who now has an emeritus role.
Beginning in New York City in 1974 by performing the Savoy operas with piano accompaniment, the company hired its first orchestra in 1979 for its seasons each year at Symphony Space theatre in Manhattan. The company was fully professional by the 1980s and began touring, presenting its full-scale productions at such venues as Wolf Trap in Virginia, as well as its New York seasons. In 2002, NYGASP first rented the 2,750-seat New York City Center, where it performed most of its annual New York seasons until 2013, after which it has used other Manhattan theatres, including Hunter College's Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse. It has performed several times at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival. NYGASP also gives performances and workshops at schools and offers smaller touring groups and cabaret performances.
History
Early years Albert Bergeret founded the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players in 1974, together with his wife, Gail Wofford (they married in 1978) and a few others. Bergeret, Wofford and most of the other founders were alumni of the Barnard Gilbert and Sullivan Society, a New York City college theatre group that presented the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan at Columbia University from 1948 to 1991.Smith, Dinitia. "Decades of Polishing Up the Handle", The New York Times, December 31, 2005, p. 9Stewart, Zachary. "What Does Justin Bieber Have to Do With Gilbert & Sullivan?", TheatreMania.com, December 13, 2013"Barnard Gilbert and Sullivan Society to Give Two Operettas", Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. C, No. 97, April 18, 1956
The nascent group's first performance was in Straus Park, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, on July 14, 1974, as part of a street fair. In the early years of the company, singers were drawn from Columbia University and from the semi-pro New York theatre community, including Vincent La Selva's opera workshop, and sang without compensation. Originally called "West Side Gilbert & Sullivan Players", the group originally performed scenes from Gilbert and Sullivan operas with a sound system and a cast of nine people in outdoor performances and in nursing homes and hospitals around New York City, with borrowed costumes, set pieces and an electric piano from the New York Grand Opera, the Bloomingdale School of Music and other supporters. Their first indoor home was at the theatre in the B’nai Jeshurun Community Center. Bergeret designed and built the sets and acted as stage and musical director. In 1975, the company incorporated as a not-for-profit organization under the current name.NYGASP Theatre Program, "Prime Time G&S: 20th Anniversary Celebration", April 24, 1994, Symphony Space, New York City
At the beginning of 1976, the company began to offer runs in repertory on Sundays, the only day the theater was available, since the New York School of Opera used the space on other days. After several Sunday performances of H.M.S Pinafore and Trial by Jury, NYGASP expanded its repertoire by premiering a new production of The Pirates of Penzance on Sunday afternoon, February 29, 1976 – the 30th birthday of the character Frederic from that opera. Bergeret appeared on stage ahead of the performance, made up as the 120-year-old hero, and a large cake was cut and shared with the audience. WQXR Radio's manager, Robert Sherman assisted with the festivities. That autumn, the company had grown sufficiently to permit four shows – Pinafore, Pirates, The Mikado, and Iolanthe – to be presented in rotation. Beginning in the fall of 1977, the company was performing full weeks runs of the operas, and the following year it moved into the 700-seat Symphony Space theatre in New York, including a production celebrating the centenary of H.M.S. Pinafore. Bergeret traded his services as the first technical director of Symphony Space (and Wofford as house manager) in exchange for office space, storage and theatre dates.
Bergeret was ambitious, and he wanted his company to grow and become fully professional. In May 1979, NYGASP hired its first 25-piece orchestra and began to pay performance fees to principal singers as the level of professionalism of its cast continued to increase. NYGASP scored a publicity coup on October 28, 1979, when pictures of the cast performing excerpts from Pinafore on the Staten Island Ferry were displayed in the Sunday New York Times and the New York Daily News. The company expanded its audience further at Symphony Space as it celebrated the centennials of the G&S operas there, beginning with The Pirates of Penzance in 1979, eventually performing all of the extant Savoy operas. NYGASP attracted such loyal fans and supporters as writer Isaac Asimov and began to gain favorable and frequent reviews in The New York Times and the Daily News, among others.Recent and archived reviews of the company's performances
The 1980s and 1990s
The 1981 season opened with NYGASP's celebration of the Patience centenary in April 1981 (hosted by Asimov). In the fall of 1981, NYGASP began touring its productions along the U.S. East Coast in addition to its short New York seasons. By the early 1980s, NYGASP paid performance fees not only to principal singers, but also to choristers. The company was able to attract an increased level of contributions, including annual grants from the New York State Council on the Arts. By the mid-1980s, NYGASP had attracted an independent Board of Directors to assist with fund raising and risk management.Current members of the NYGASP Board of Directors
NYGASP has imported various guest stars over the years to appeal to a larger audience. In 1984, NYGASP hired John Reed, the former principal comedian of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, to join NYGASP for a centennial production of Princess Ida at Symphony Space.Holden, Stephen. "Operetta: Gilbert and Sullivan's Ida", The New York Times, January 1, 1984 He remained as the company's principal comedian for five more of its New York seasons.Kozinn, Allan. "A Pirates of Penzance With Some Opulence", The New York Times, December 22, 1988 His presence also attracted additional professional singers to NYGASP for the chance to perform with him, and he was able to impart some of his experience to company regulars. At a gala benefit for the company at Symphony Space in 1987, Reed, dressed as the Lord Chancellor from Iolanthe, proposed marriage, on stage, to celebrity sex therapist and author Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Later guest stars came mostly from a television background.Morrison, Michael A. "A Topsy-Turvy World", Theatre Mania, December 2001, accessed December 3, 2012 Some of those, like Steve Allen in 1995, were criticized for their lack of experience in the genre,Oestreich, James R. "Giving The Mikado a Steve Allen Treatment", The New York Times, January 7, 1995, accessed December 3, 2012 while others, like Hal Linden in 2008, fared well.
NYGASP averaged four productions a year at Symphony Space during the 1980s and 1990s, each playing for about a week. In 1985, the orchestra was unionized, and in 1989 the company entered into an agreement with the Actors' Equity union. The company's repertoire expanded throughout the 1980s, and it gradually produced all of the extant Gilbert and Sullivan operas. There was also a short-lived attempt in 1989 to broaden the company's repertory beyond G&S, when it presented Gershwin's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Of Thee I Sing.Holden, Stephen. "Reviews/Music; Gilbert and Sullivan Yield to Gershwin and Ryskind", The New York Times, April 3, 1990, accessed December 26, 2013 But the experiment proved too expensive for the company, and since then, NYGASP has stayed with G&S and a few presentations of Sullivan collaborations with other librettists. NYGASP recovered from a financially difficult 1990 with the help of supporter contributions and a willingness of its audiences to pay higher ticket prices, and the company survived (after one dark season), and continued to grow, through the 1990s, outliving the other professional light opera companies in New York City, notably the year-round Light Opera of Manhattan. In 1997 the company hired a professional touring management company.
2000–2024 In 2001, Symphony Space closed for renovations. NYGASP rented New York City Center, a 2,750-seat theatre in midtown Manhattan, for its 2002 season.Griffiths, Paul. "Operetta Review; Softhearted Pirates and One Sappy Guy", The New York Times, January 15, 2002, accessed July 22, 2016; and Kennerley, David. "Fairies Gone Wild, Fa-la", Gay City News, Vol. 3, issue 303, January 15–21, 2004, accessed July 22, 2015 In 2007, NYGASP presented, at City Center, a performance of The Rose of Persia, a comic opera by Sullivan and Basil Hood that had not been performed by a professional company for over seventy years.Dale, Michael. "The Rose of Persia: Sullivan Without Gilbert", BroadwayWorld.com, 14 January 2007 During a three-week run of Pirates, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Mikado, the company enjoyed good box office results and continued to perform at City Center most seasons thereafter until 2013. Moving to this large house increased NYGASP's level of recognition and its annual budget to nearly 1.5 million dollars.Gluck, Victor. "The Mikado", TheatreScene.net, January 7, 2013Smith, Steve. "When Yeomen Seek Yeowomen", The New York Times, January 21, 2013 Since 2014, the company has used other venues for its New York seasons.Smith, Steve. "A Satire with Targets Not So Well Remembered", The New York Times, 5 January 2014Schweitzer, Vivien. "Naughty in Spite of Himself", The New York Times, November 2, 2014, accessed July 19, 2016; and Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna da. "Is The Mikado Too Politically Incorrect to Be Fixed? Maybe Not.", December 30, 2016