VLOC is looking for directors for the following productions for the 2018-2019 season!
 

• The Grand Duke, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • Performances: August 30 and September 1, 2018
  • This will be a concert performance with orchestra, as part of VLOC’s 6th Great Gilbert & Sullivan Sing-out
  • This project is looking for a stage director. The stipend is $500.
• Jack and the Beanstalk, by Jack Davies, using music from seven G&S operettas.
  • Performances: October 20-21 & 27-28, 2018, with 2 performances each day at 11am and 2pm. 
  • Rehearsals begin the week of 9/17/18, with all rehearsals and performances at the Arts Barn in Gaithersburg. 
  • This project is looking for both a stage director and a music director.  The stipend for each is $500.
• Princess Ida, by Gilbert & Sullivan
  • Performances: June 7 –16, 2019 (Fridays-Sundays only)
  • This will be a fully staged performance with orchestra
  • This project is looking for a stage director. The stipend is $2000.

 
If you are interested in directing a show, please email a one-page treatment of the opera to [email protected] no later than May 15, 2018. The one-pager should relate your concept for the production to include any cuts, staging, scenery, costume, or rehearsal requirements. VLOC will contact prospective directors to schedule interviews. 

VLOC's upcoming performance of Patience this June will be a classic Gilbert & Sullivan production, and the Victorian pomp and wit will shine in all its glory! One feature for which Patience is so famous is it's varied and hilarious satire. Poking fun at politics? Check. The military? Check. Poets? Yep, that too.

Ok, poetry is a little different than politics and the military. So why do Gilbert and Sullivan poke fun at something as seemingly non-controversial as poets?

The answer lies in a cultural movement taking place in England at the time - the Aesthetic Movement. Apparently, a number of artists at the time had grown rather tired of the "rules" that the norms of the Victorian Era had imposed on both art and life. These "aesthetes" decided beauty in art was of the utmost importance, and the accepted cultural norms (or even practicalities) that demanded conformity and respectability were artistically limiting and should be cast aside to let art reach the highest level of beauty possible.

Some aesthetes took this "art for art's sake" notion very seriously, even to the point of walking, talking, and moving in ways very strange to Victorian England. Many had devoted fans, but there were plenty of people that called out the aesthetes for being shallow and fake. 

So this Aesthetic Movement, along with the backlash against it, was all the rage at the time that Gilbert and Sullivan composed Patience, and they took full advantage of the situation to make an operatic hit. Of course, they wove in biting satire about plenty of other topics - politics (which is an easy target), love, rural life, etc. But the satiric icing on the cake of this opera is certainly their ingenious stabs at the Aesthetic Movement and all it entailed, which is brought to life in Patience through the rivalry between two sham poets. 

Don't miss all the wit and the laughs that this opera brings! Patience shows in June at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, and you can buy your tickets now! Call the box office at 240-314-8690 or buy online HERE.

We're already getting geared up for our next show - Gilbert & Sullivan's Patience! We are excited to get started on this G&S gem, and we're also excited to announce the cast for the show!

Patience, A Dairy Maid - Robin Steitz 
Reginald Bunthorne, A Fleshly Poet - Rick DuPuy
Archibald Grosvenor, An Idyllic Poet - Kevin Schellhase
The Lady Jane - Denise Young
The Lady Angela - Katelyn Neumann
The Lady Saphir - Rebecca Poyatt
The Lady Ella - Genevieve Japinga
Colonel Calverley - Jim Knost
Major Murgatroyd - Michael Beder
Lieut. the Duke of Dunstable - Bob Gudauskas

Chorus of Rapturous Maidens and Dragoon Guards
Nicole Cherecwich, Chinwe Enu, Claire Gelilli, Tom Goode,
Tara Hockensmith, Rand Huntzinger, Ralph Johnson, Carlton Maryott, Christina Massimei, Joshua Milton, Monica Rajan*, Dave Robinson, Bill Rogers, Sarah Seider, Maria Wilson, Michael Wolyniec, Kent Woods

*cover for The Lady Angela & The Lady Saphir

There are more exciting tidbits and show information coming your way soon. Stay tuned! This is going to be a wonderfully fun show!