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Image"The pirates, the pirates - oh, despair!" The CRS Barn Studio proudly presents W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, or, The Slave of Duty, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, August 20-22, 2009 at 7:30pm. Steven Stull directs this lively and engaging new production, with choreography by Jeanne Goddard.

The "rollicking band" of singers, all with impressive musical and theatrical credentials, includes Ithaca favorites Steven Stull as the Pirate King, David Neal as the Sergeant of Police, Robin Booth as the nursemaid-turned-pirate, Ruth, and John Rozzoni as Samuel. Gary Race, former artistic director of the Ithaca Opera, returns to appear as Major General Stanley.

Completing the cast will be guest stars: soprano Lianne Coble, as Mabel, seen regularly by central New York audiences in performances with Syracuse Opera and Syracuse Symphony, and tenor Eric van Hoven, who has performed leading roles with New York City Opera and on Broadway with director Hal Prince. Audiences will enjoy the familiar voices of Cornell Savoyards, Ithaca Community Chorus members, and other friends in the chorus. Musical direction is by Richard Montgomery and Bill Cowdery.

This year marks the 130th anniversary of the 1879 premier of The Pirates of Penzance (which followed hard on the heels of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S.Pinafore), and the 70th anniversary of its 1939 experimental television broadcast. Thanks to well-loved tunes such as "I am the very model of a modern Major General," "I am a Pirate King," and "Come, lads who plow the seas" -- "pirated" in the U.S. as "Hail, hail, the gang's all here" -- Pirates has remained one of Gilbert and Sullivan's most popular operettas.

The CRS Barn Studio, celebrated venue of Opera Cowpokes, Alive! and The Handel Project, is now in its nineteenth season of presenting adventurous, high quality music and dance events in an idyllic setting, under the directorship of Steven Stull and Jeanne Goddard.  Stull has performed a wide range of repertory with opera companies and orchestras including Glimmerglass Opera, Kyrgyz State Opera, West Virginia Symphony, Tri-Cities Opera, Syracuse Opera, Syracuse Symphony, and the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. He is also a director, choreographer, and scenic designer. Goddard has created choreography for opera and musical theater for 30 years, in addition to her concert choreography, commissioned by modern dance and ballet companies and the Western NY Institute for the Arts in Education. She has run the dance program at Wells College since 1987.

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