Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard runs at the Pumphouse Theatre April 28 – May 6, 2023

Show times: Wed – Sat @ 7:30pm; Matinees Apr. 30 & May 6 @ 2:00pm.  See the ticketing website for full details.

THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD

April 28th to May 6th, 2023
A comic operetta by William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

Directed by Kyle Gould
Music Directed by Winnifred Hume
Choreographed by Mya Swedburg

The show takes place in the Tower of London where Colonel Fairfax is wrongly accused of sorcery and sentenced to death within the hour. Fairfax hatches a plan to secretly marry a strolling singer, who now expects to be a wealthy widow upon Fairfax’s imminent demise, leaving her free to marry her lover, the jester Jack Point. However, Fairfax miraculously escapes his fate and chaos ensues.

Production Crew
ProducerColleen Bishop
DirectorKyle Gould
Musical DirectorWinnifred Hume
Choreographer & Asst DirectorMya Swedburg
Stage ManagerMike Johnson
Rehearsal AccompanistTheo Bimson
Set DesignerReeve Smith
Set ConstructionBill Brown
Properties & Set DécorMoira Taylor
Costume DesignerChristie Johnson
Lighting DesignPearl Nkomo
Board OperatorTrevor Somers
Cast
Sir Richard Cholmondeley
George Thomson
Colonel Fairfax
Kassandra Schantz
Sergeant Meryll
Joel McLeish
Leonard Meryll
Paige Fossheim
Jack PointGinette Simonot
Wilfred Shadbolt
Aaron Bartholomew
Phoebe Meryll Evangeline Mably
Elsie Maynard
Devon Wannop
Dame Carruthers
Danica Powersmith
Kate
Wendy Knight
ChorusDave Burhoe
Terry Chung
Madeleine D’Agnillo
Amber Dujay
Gianluca
Alexa Jobs
Grace Lu
Erin Mackey
Alicia Maedel
Jane McDowell
Adanna Nawalkowski
Rose Reimer
Cameron Ross
Moira Taylor
Ed Washington
Derek Wilkinson

An Intro to The Yeomen of the Guard

Gilbert & Sullivan: operetta’s standing superstars, and with good reason. Full to the brim of farce, the duo’s characteristic flair for the chaotic is a running theme throughout their works, and The Yeomen of the Guard is no exception. If you’ve loved our G&S productions previously (or any comedy!) but would like a dark slant on the standard, we think you’ll love The Yeomen of the Guard.

Read up on Gilbert & Sullivan’s tower-based tragedy before our 2022/23 Season production.

*Content thanks to the English National Opera eno.org

A darker tale

Much like other Gilbert librettos, the cast of this operetta is a lovely lot – in the sense of everyone seems to be in love with one another! Set at the Tower of London, Sergeant Meryll, of the titular Yeomen of the Guard, lives with his daughter, Phœbe Meryll. At the beginning of our tale, Phœbe has gained the eye of the Jailor,  Wilfred Shadbolt. Wilfred, of course, has noticed who Phœbe has her eye on: Colonel Fairfax, a much grander man. Unfortunately, he’ll be a much less pretty picture without a head, as his execution is scheduled the same day.

Hatching a daring plan involving her brother Leonard impersonating the Colonel, this is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Jack Point and Elsie Maynard, a duo of performers. Jack, of course, is infatuated with Elsie, so when the Lieutenant of the tower asks if Elsie wishes to marry Fairfax to negate her family’s financial strife, she relents.

…and all that happens within the first few scenes of Act 1. You might notice a grand total of five in our lovestruck cast: Phœbe, Wilfred, Fairfax, Jack and Elsie. Five, notoriously, is not a number which couples up easily. One of this number doesn’t get their happy ending – a rarity amongst Gilbert & Sullivan’s works!

Sullivan’s finest work

Composed towards the tail end of their working partnership, The Yeomen of the Guard marks a notable departure from the rest of Gilbert & Sullivan’s compositional output. Whilst it remains at its heart a G&S show, Yeomen is perhaps their least farcical work, putting away some of the childish glee we’re used to in their operettas and choosing to instead focus on a more adult storyline – where perhaps not everyone gets their happy ending after all. 

With this change in tone, Sullivan wrote what might be the best score of the bunch. Expanding the orchestra from the previously written Ruddigore, Sullivan’s use of the orchestra is masterful, straying from the familiar groove we know G&S operettas for in favour of more adventurous and daring writing. Of course, this does not come at the expense of delightful tunes, to which Yeomen is full to the brim: ‘I have a song to sing, O’, ‘When a Wooer goes a-Wooing’, ‘Free from his fetters grim’ and more

Immediately a hit in London, The Yeomen of the Guard opened 3 October 1888 and ran for 423 performances, with a English provincial tour opening the same year. The D’Oyly Carte company, which performed almost exclusively Gilbert & Sullivan’s works from the 1870s up until the 1980s, quickly added the show to their repertoire, bring the show back again and again – with 4 revivals just in the remainder of Sullivan’s life.