Pirates! The Penzance Musical

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Not seen on Broadway since 1982 but racking up 26 productions up to that time since its New York premiere in 1879, the Roundabout Theatre Company’s new version of the Gilbert and Sullivan classic operetta, The Pirates of Penzance, has been given a delightful facelift: retitled Pirates! The Penzance Musical is has now been Americanized and reset in a jazzy 1880 New Orleans by the team of director Scott Ellis, adapter Rupert Holmes, choreographer Warren Carlyle and music director and co-orchestrator Joseph Joubert. The energetic cast is led by Ramin Karimloo as the Pirate King, Jinkx Monsoon as Ruth and two-time Tony Award-winner David Hyde Pierce as Major-General Stanley, backed by a lusty crew of singers and dancers.

The new book by Holmes, the triple threat wizard behind the multiple endings to his musical of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, begins with Gilbert (Hyde Pierce) and Sullivan (Preston Truman Boyd) themselves introducing their show to the audience at The Theatre of the Renaissance in the French Quarter of New Orleans. In fact, G&S did arrive in American to premiere The Pirates of Penzance in order to secure the U.S. copyright after discovering that there were 15 non-royalty productions of their previous operetta H.M.S Pinafore running in Manhattan at the same time. The show then proceeds to tell the original plot but with all of the British names and expressions replaced by American ones (the Caribbean, Cuba, the Mississippi, Baton Rouge, Atchafalaya swampland of Louisiana, The Big Easy and Jackson Square, etc.) and with a somewhat different ending as the American pirates cannot turn out to be English lords.

The original score has been pruned somewhat and the remaining songs either have Holmes’ witty new lyrics, edited lyrics, new stanzas, or words substituted. In addition, there are five songs added from other Gilbert and Sullivan operettas as well as opening the score with Sullivan’s “Onward Christian Soldiers,” a perennial favorite. The new interpolated songs include “Good Morning, Good Mother” (now “Good Morning, Good Brothers”)  from Iolanthe, “We Sail the Ocean Blue” (now “The ‘Sail the Ocean’ Blues”) from HMS Pinafore, “The Nightmare Song” from Iolanthe, G&S’ second most famous patter song now assigned auspiciously to Hyde Pierce’s Major-General Stanley, Ruth’s new “Alone and Yet Alive” from The Mikado, and the new finale of “He Is an Englishman” from H.M.S. Pinafore, now “We’re All from Someplace Else.” The additions either beef up one or the other roles or allow for lyrics to cover the slightly new situations of the New Orleans and American setting.

The satiric plot concerns Frederic, an apprentice pirate, who comes of age that very night during their rest stop in New Orleans. However, it turns out that his governess Ruth was hard of hearing and misunderstood apprenticing him to a pilot for pirate. As result, Frederic informs his beloved captain, The Pirate King, Santiago du Bouchard, that he will leave them as of that night and do his best to bring them to justice. At this time the eight daughters of Major-General Stanley arrive and Frederic who has never seen a woman other than the older Ruth is immediately smitten as are the other Pirates. Only the Major-General’s daughter Mabel takes pity on Frederic and they fall in love, while the pirates plot to kidnap the other sisters for their brides. Then their father arrives in time to sing the famous patter song, “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General,” and lies to the tender-hearted orphaned Pirate King that he too is an orphan. At this point the pirates release all of the women.

In the second act, set at the newly acquired estate of the guilty Major-General Stanley, he is awaiting the Volunteer Police Force of New Orleans to apprehend the pirates with Frederic at their head. Unfortunately, for Frederic, always the slave of duty (the operetta’s original subtitle), Ruth and the Pirate King arrive to tell him that he is indentured until his 21st birthday not his 21^st year, but as he was born on Feb. 29 he will not reach his majority for another 66 years. Frederic accepts the logic of this and reveals to the pirates that the Major-General is not an orphan and was lying. As a result, he rejoins them in order to get their revenge. Eventually all works out happily with many planned weddings.

Ellis who has proved his expertise previously with classic musicals like She Loves Me, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and On the Twentieth Century, has directed with style and panache. Ramin Karimloo, last seen on Broadway as Nicky Arnstein in the revival of Funny Girl, is a dashing, virile Pirate King, adept in singing, dancing, acting and swordplay. He is excellent at the swashbuckling the role requires. Jinkx Monsoon, two-time winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, is droll as Ruth, playing her as a kind of Eve Arden sidekick.

David Hyde Pierce, who gets to sing the two most famous patter songs in one evening, is wryly humorous as the modern Major-General who can lie like the best of them. He is also very elegant as librettist William S. Gilbert as is Preston Truman Boyd as composer Arthur Sullivan. Boyd gets to return in the second act as the modest and cowardly Sergeant of the New Orleans Police who informs us that “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.” In the juvenile and ingénue roles, Nicholas Barasch as young, inexperienced Frederic and Samantha Williams as the feisty Mabel Stanley are both charming. The rest of the large cast is excellent at their singing and dancing responsibilities. Choreographer Warren Carlyle has created some clever and satiric dances for the ensemble, particularly one that derives from A Chorus Line.

Music director Joseph Joubert, who is also co-orchestrator with Daryl Waters, has updated the classical score to include jazz, blues, calypso, boogie-woogie, ragtime, and other American and Caribbean rhythms which works very well superimposed on Sullivan’s original melodies.  Joubert also conducts the superb 16-piece orchestra. David Rockwell’s picture book settings are very pleasing to eye as are Linda Cho’s colorful costumes. While there is nothing very wrong with Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound design, at times the witty lyrics are lost by too fast singing. The fight direction of Rick Sordelet and Christian Kelly-Sordelet is most convincing in the pirates’ dueling scenes. And of course, once again Rupert Holmes demonstrates in his adaptation how witty both he and W.S. Gilbert continue to be. Pirates! The Penzance Musical is a joyous evening in the theater with its lush melodies by Arthur Sullivan and its engaging fun and clowning.

Pirates! The Penzance Musical (through July 27, 2025)

Roundabout Theatre Company

Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 W. 42^nd Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 212-719-1300 or visit http://www.roundabouttheatre.org

Running time: two hours and 20 minutes including one intermission