Founded in 1901, The Savoy Company is the oldest amateur theater company in the world dedicated solely to the production of the 13 surviving comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Savoy Company has performed at the spacious Academy of Music (since 1926, where it is the oldest tenant) and Longwood Gardens, where it was invited by founder Pierre S. du Pont. [1]
The company gives Philadelphia audiences an opportunity to see the Gilbert and Sullivan works with full orchestra and comparatively opulent production values, compared with most amateur theatre groups. The company's productions typically reach an annual audience of approximately 8,000 people through two performances at the Academy of Music, one of the oldest grand opera houses in the country, and two performances at the outdoor theater within Longwood Gardens, located in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. [1]
Since 1901, The Savoy Company has been an important part of Philadelphia's cultural, philanthropic, and social arenas. The Company donates the net proceeds from its performances to local charitable organizations. In the past fifteen years, The Savoy Company has donated over $150,000 to local charitable organizations. Founded by Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiast and physician Alfred Reginald Allen (1876–1918) [2] and a few of his friends, The Savoy Company has always performed the works of Gilbert and Sullivan (sharing the artistic, musical, and cultural influences of these works) and supported other local, charitable organizations. [1] In 1918, members of the company established the Alfred Reginald Allen Scholarship Fund for the benefit of the Music Department of the University of Pennsylvania. The Company continues to support this fund with annual contributions. The Company also makes annual donations to local, charitable organizations, including the Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Daemion House, the Brandywine Conservancy, and the Delaware S.P.C.A., among many others.
The Savoy Company is financially self-supporting and covers the costs of its productions through volunteer work. All of the principal actors, chorus members, and backstage crew members are dues-paying members of the company. Officers, board members and committee chairs are all company members. Savoy provides its own choreographers and dancers. It also designs and builds its own sets, as well as costumes, props, and lighting. Each active member of the company typically donates hundreds of hours of volunteer time to the company every season. To cover its costs, the company sells tickets and advertising in an extensive, printed program book. The Savoy season officially begins in early February, although production and administrative planning continue year-round. Staging rehearsals are held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at various social club venues throughout the Philadelphia area. The backstage crew meets on Wednesday evenings and Saturdays. The Savoy Company's performances generally take place in late May and early June.
A smaller ensemble of The Savoy Company, The Savoy Travelling Troupe, presents concert-versions of its performances for area community events, schools, nursing, and retirement homes. The Travelling Troupe has also performed for special celebrations, such as Victorian Day in Cape May, New Jersey and the Radnor Hunt Three-Day event. It has sung the National Anthem before Philadelphia Eagles football games and Philadelphia Phillies baseball games. The Travelling Troupe has performed several times at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival held annually in Buxton, England, including at the Festival's Philadelphia legs in 1996 and 1997. In 1997, members of The Savoy Company were asked to work with former D'Oyly Carte Opera Company actors in their performance of "H.M.S. Pinafore" at the Festival. In 1999, Savoy also helped the Blue Hill Troupe in New York City to celebrate its 75th anniversary with a performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Savoy's membership consists of volunteers drawn from the Greater Philadelphia area. Nelson Eddy was one of the members who later became a professional performer (for the company, Eddy played Strephon in 1922 and 1927 and the Major-General in 1923). All potential members (on-stage and backstage) are required to audition and take part in a short interview. The company provides a creative and social outlet for its several hundred active members. Over 50 couples have met their spouses through the company, and many of the members are second and third-generation members. Each season, Savoy sponsors a series of social events open to members and their friends. The Savoy season culminates with the traditional June Fatal, a formal black-tie dinner held in mid-June.
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known.
Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house the Gilbert and Sullivan pieces, and later those by other composer–librettist teams. The great bulk of the non-G&S Savoy Operas either failed to achieve a foothold in the standard repertory, or have faded over the years, leaving the term "Savoy Opera" as practically synonymous with Gilbert and Sullivan. The Savoy operas were seminal influences on the creation of the modern musical.
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps for Richard D'Oyly Carte and opened on 10 October 1881 on a site previously occupied by the Savoy Palace. Its intended purpose was to showcase the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, which became known as the Savoy operas.
Utopia, Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress, is a Savoy opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was the second-to-last of Gilbert and Sullivan's fourteen collaborations, premiering on 7 October 1893 for a run of 245 performances. It did not achieve the success of most of their earlier productions.
The Grand Duke; or, The Statutory Duel, is the final Savoy Opera written by librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan, their fourteenth and last opera together. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 7 March 1896, and ran for 123 performances. Despite a successful opening night, the production had a relatively short run and was the partnership's only financial failure, and the two men never worked together again. In recent decades, the opera has been revived professionally, first in the US and then in the UK.
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival was founded in 1994 by Ian Smith and his son Neil and is held every summer in England. The two- or three-week Festival of Gilbert and Sullivan opera performances and fringe events attracts thousands of visitors, including performers, supporters, and G&S enthusiasts from around the world. The Festival was held in Buxton, Derbyshire, from 1994 to 2013, and from 2014 to 2022, it was held in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, usually with a week in Buxton preceding the main part of the Festival. The entire Festival returned to Buxton in 2023.
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two lodgers, one who works at night and one who works during the day. When one of them has the day off, they meet each other in the room and tempers flare. Sullivan wrote this piece five years before his first opera with W. S. Gilbert, Thespis.
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company which, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. The company was revived for short seasons and tours from 1988 to 2003, and since 2013 it has co-produced four of the operas with Scottish Opera.
Light Opera of Manhattan, known as LOOM, was an off-Broadway repertory theatre company that produced light operas, including the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and European and American operettas, 52 weeks per year, in New York City between 1968 and 1989.
Walter Henry Passmore was an English singer and actor best known as the first successor to George Grossmith in the comic baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte DBE was head of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1948 until 1982. She was the granddaughter of the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte and the only daughter of Rupert D'Oyly Carte.
Helen Carte Boulter, also known as Helen Lenoir, was a Scottish businesswoman known for her diplomatic skills and grasp of detail. Beginning as his secretary, and later marrying, impresario and hotelier Richard D'Oyly Carte, she is best remembered for her stewardship of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Savoy Hotel from the end of the 19th century into the early 20th century.
New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players is a professional repertory theatre company, based in New York City that has specialized in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan for over 40 years. It performs an annual season in New York City and tours extensively in North America.
Washington Savoyards was a professional musical theatre company based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1972, the company annually produced three fully staged musicals and operettas, usually including at least one Gilbert and Sullivan production each year. It performed at the Duke Ellington School and the Atlas Performing Arts Center. The company suspended performances in 2012.
Wilbur Whilt "Wib" Evans was an American actor and singer who performed on the radio, in opera, on Broadway in films and early live television.
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its popular companion piece, Jacques Offenbach's La Périchole. The story concerns a "breach of promise of marriage" lawsuit in which the judge and legal system are the objects of lighthearted satire. Gilbert based the libretto of Trial by Jury on an operetta parody that he had written in 1868.
Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company, based in Derby, England, produced the works of Gilbert and Sullivan from 1966 to 2018. The company won the amateur competition at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival an unprecedented six times and was called "one of the most highly acclaimed nonprofessional theatre companies in the UK". The company also won awards from the Waterford International Festival of Light Opera.
Lakeshore Light Opera (LLO) is an amateur community theatre group that performs Gilbert and Sullivan operas in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada. The company produced its first show in 1955. Early in its history, the group was directed by former D'Oyly Carte Opera Company member Doris Hemingway, and briefly conducted by her husband, former D'Oyly Carte conductor Harry Norris. The group was known as St Paul's Operatic Society until 1980, when it changed its name to Lakeshore Light Opera. For over 35 years, proceeds from its annual production have been contributed to the Lakeshore General Hospital.
The Blue Hill Troupe, Ltd., is a musical theatre performing company and charitable organization based in New York City. The Troupe is the only musical theatre company in the city that donates all the net proceeds of its performances to charity.