Corrections Gilbert and Sullivan Players Send an SOS to Gershwin Corrections
LEAD: A picture caption yesterday about the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' production of George Gershwin's 'Of Thee I Sing' misidentified the actor shown. He was Alan Hill.  LEAD: 'We have not given up on Gilbert and Sullivan,' said Albert Bergeret, the founder, artistic director and principal conductor of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players. 'But we have nearly come to the end of the Gilbert and Sullivan repertory, and we wanted to find a way to stretch some artistic muscle and possibly develop new audiences.  LEAD: A picture caption yesterday about the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' production of George Gershwin's 'Of Thee I Sing' misidentified the actor shown. He was Alan Hill.
A picture caption yesterday about the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' production of George Gershwin's 'Of Thee I Sing' misidentified the actor shown. He was Alan Hill.
'We have not given up on Gilbert and Sullivan,' said Albert Bergeret, the founder, artistic director and principal conductor of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players. 'But we have nearly come to the end of the Gilbert and Sullivan repertory, and we wanted to find a way to stretch some artistic muscle and possibly develop new audiences.'
Mr. Bergeret is betting that one way to do those things is to take brief excursions beyond the confines of the Savoyard repertory in which the group has specialized since he founded it in 1974. He is also hoping that by appealing to a broader audience, he will be able to pull his company through a financially perilous time, and perhaps begin chipping away at the $100,000 deficit that hangs like the Lord High Executioner's ax over the company's future.
Tonight, the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players are forsaking their namesakes and offering a George Gershwin classic, 'Of Thee I Sing.' The production is to run at Symphony Space through April 15.
The show, a political satire written in 1931, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, was the first Broadway musical to win a Pulitzer Prize. It was revised and updated in the 1950's, and there was a television version in the 1970's. Three years ago, Michael Tilson Thomas led a concert performance of the music and some of the dialogue, featuring long-lost original orchestrations that were discovered in a New Jersey warehouse in 1985. But Mr. Bergeret's production will be the first staging of the complete original version of the work since the early 1930's.
'Both Dated and Timeless'
'Although 'Of Thee I Sing' is not an operetta, it is written in an operetta style,' the 41-year-old Mr. Bergeret said the other day at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation on West 91st Street, where the company maintains a cluttered office. It is 'both dated and timeless, in the way the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are,' he said. 'The piece is rooted in the 1930's, but there are jokes about the stock market, the Vice President and various South American governments.
'Also, in many of the original reviews, comparisons were made with Gilbert and Sullivan. Of course, the book is written with Kaufman's own particular style, and Ryskind's one-line zingers, and is very different from Gilbert's kind of writing. But it incorporates the same kind of sophistication.'
It was Kristin Garver, the company's stage director, who suggested doing 'Of Thee I Sing,' and after reading the book, Mr. Bergeret and his choreographer, Bill Fabris, agreed that it was well within the company's stylistic grasp.
The piece is about the campaign and administration of President John P. Wintergreen, whose principal qualification is his Presidential-sounding name. His campaign staff decides to augment his appeal by holding a beauty contest to select his First Lady, but by the time the contest is over, Wintergreen has fallen in love with Mary Turner, a secretary who can bake unimpeachable corn muffins. Meanwhile, the winner, Diana Devereaux, turns out to have distant family ties to Napoleon, and France has taken Wintergreen's neglect of her amiss.
Gershwin Galore
Along the way, there are plenty of the Gershwins' songs, several of which are standards. Besides the title song, the score includes 'Who Cares?' 'Love Is Sweeping the Country' and 'Wintergreen for President.' There is even a song that could almost be taken as an escapee from a Gilbert and Sullivan work, 'The Illegitimate Daughter,' which establishes Diana's pedigree as 'an illegitimate daughter of an illegitimate son of an illegitimate nephew of Napoleon.'
'We are going to do it straight, with no updating and no interpolations,' Ms. Garver said. 'One of the things I told everybody to do is to look at the movies of the period, because they're perfect examples of the styles of the time.'
The group is also benefiting from the experience of Al Simon, the rehearsal pianist for the original production. Mr. Simon, who is 82 years old, has attended some of the company's rehearsals, and performed with some of the singers at the Wall-to-Wall Gershwin marathon at Symphony Space last Saturday.
No matter how successful the run is, Mr. Bergeret and Ms. Garver say, the company's financial side will have to be reconsidered if the troupe is to stay in business. When Mr. Bergeret started the company, 16 years ago, his budget was $35; last year's budget was $250,000.
The company has developed a steady group of players - among them, Del-Bouree Bach, Keith Jurosko, Kate Egan and Jayne Lynch, who are the principal players in 'Of Thee I Sing.' Its productions have been consistently admired by reviewers, who have found their direct, unvarnished approach to Gilbert's librettos and Sullivan's music refreshingly bright and authentic.
But Mr. Bergeret's ensemble has reached a dangerous pass in its transition from a shoestring operation to a professional company. Until last year, when the company took a loss on its tour dates, it had been meeting 90 percent of its expenses from box-office receipts.
Still Ambitious
'Our strong point has always been putting on shows and selling tickets to meet our fees,' Mr. Bergeret said. 'But as we get bigger and bigger, we find we are in danger of growing out of business. What we need to do is develop a board of directors that is active in raising money. That's a slow process, but as soon as this show is over, we are going to have to do some crisis fund raising.'
The company's financial problems have not dampened its ambitions. Mr. Bergeret, taking it on faith that the money will be found, is already planning next season, which includes 'The Mikado' and probably 'Iolanthe' around Christmas, and Sullivan's grand opera, 'Ivanhoe,' in the spring.
'We hope people who are not predisposed to Gilbert and Sullivan will hear our Gershwin,' Mr. Bergeret said, 'and will then recognize the company and come to see us do Gilbert and Sullivan when they might not have otherwise.'
A picture caption yesterday about the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' production of George Gershwin's 'Of Thee I Sing' misidentified the actor shown. He was Alan Hill.