The Sandwich Board

Tickets are on sale online. Performances are April 7th at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m., and April 14th at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m. at Maynard High School, Maynard. Witty lyrics, a beautiful score, romance, comedy, conflict, and a lot of humanity. This is a production you will not want to miss!

Sneak Peek March 24th, 11am! Tune in to WERS’ Standing Room Only (88.9FM) on March 24th around 11am to hear Iolanthe’s featured performers on the air live with interviews and a musical number or two!!

Iolanthe takes the audience on a trip from 1880s England to Fairyland, but this is not your average fairy tale. Although the fairies are graceful and spritely, they are not to be trifled with, especially not the Fairy Queen. The show opens with the fairies discussing Iolanthe’s banishment: punishment for marrying a mortal. After some coaxing, the Fairy Queen relents and summons Iolanthe who tells them of her twenty-four-year-old son, Strephon. “Is he pretty? He’s extremely pretty…”

Naturally, it wouldn’t be Gilbert and Sullivan without paradox and satire. Strephon is “fairy down to the waist, but his legs are mortal.” His bride-to-be, the beautiful Phyllis, has no idea of his fairyhood. The Lord Chancellor secretly loves Phyllis, his Ward in Chancery, and refuses to allow the marriage. The peers, especially Lord Tolloller and Lord Mountararat, also adore Phyllis. When Phyllis spies Strephon talking to a young lady, she calls off the engagement and promises to wed either Tolloller or Mountararat (a choice to which she is indifferent). Strephon protests that the young lady is his mother. Phyllis and the peers reject the ridiculous notion that a “maid of seventeen” could be the mother of a man “of four or five and twenty.” Act I concludes with a battle between fairies and peers and Strephon being appointed to parliament backed by fairy authority. “Oh, horror!”

Despite its elements of fantasy, Iolanthe is one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most realistic operettas, portraying characters with real emotions, real conflict, and real motivations. Iolanthe also is about the timeless themes of love vs. law and the law vs. justice. This production will emphasize the realism by allowing the words and music to speak for themselves.

Directors: Tony Parkes (stage) and Kathryn Denney (music)
Producer: James Ravan
Featuring: Elaine Crane (Phyllis), Graham Daley (Iolanthe), Ann Ferentz (Fairy Queen), Brad Amidon (Strephon), Ben Morse (Lord Chancellor), Lindsey Soboleski (Celia), Laura Proctor (Leila), Kerry Tamm (Fleta), Tim Daughters (Lord Tolloller), Mike Lague (Lord Mountararat), and Matt Tragert (Private Willis).