Broadcast of The Yeomen of the Guard

Until our yeomen return to the Houston stage next summer, join us  for the next best thing!

Mark your calendars for a pay-as-you-can online broadcast of our award-winning performance of The Yeomen of the Guard, filmed in 1998 at the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Buxton, England. This viewing will feature live commentary and Q&A by our own Alistair Donkin and former music director Robert Linder, both featured in the performance.

The event can be joined when it begins by visiting gilbertandsullivan.org/yeomen98.

From the Society's yearbook entry for 1998:

"1998 brought a return of Sullivan's grandest and most operatic music in Yeomen of the Guard, as well as another journey for the company to England's International G&S Festival.  Garnering major awards for a second time, our cast was blessed abroad with more temperate weather than in '95, making the wearing of Tower uniforms more palatable.  

Our Houston audience shared our pride in having such a strong cast for competition.  Leah Tsamous shone as Dame Carruthers and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.  Katz and Karn (a stage duo name if ever there was one) stole the comedy as the lovelorn jailer Shadbolt and his scheming Phoebe, but Ms. Karn outdid herself with a nomination for Best Female Performer and an award for Best Supporting Actress.  We were blessed with the gorgeous talent for Glay Posch as Elsire, nominated for Best Female Voice and matched by Russ Clark's powerful Colonel Fairfax.

Our chorus, itself nominated for Best Chorus, showed tremendous energy onstage, particularly in the first act finale.  Our show was a sold-out, standing-room-only performance, the first at the festival, and the adjudicator called it "truly a wonderful performance of Yeomen, with all its pathos, with all its beauty, with all its humor."  And as to "understanding of the words. . . it almost makes me ashamed to admit that the Americans taught me a lot about diction tonight!"

Responsible for our getting those compliments, directors Alistair Donkin and Robert Linder were awarded Best Professional Director and Best Musical Director.  Being from Texas and thus unable to represent G&S opera at the London Festival in May, we took Runner-up, Best of Festival, an award we still regard with pride.  We celebrated with several pints of English beer afterwards, performing in an after-show cabaret.  One moment of note was Billy Hargis, who transformed from Lt. Cholmondely to a glory-shouting, gospel-singing tent preacher in a spontaneous routine.  Some Brits weren't prepared for this, but then, they've never met any fire-breathing Texans before.  This was truly a great night to remember."