D'Oyly Carte Opera Company be released from the partnership on several occasions. Nevertheless, they coaxed eight comic operas out of Gilbert and Sullivan in the 1880s. When "Princess Ida" closed after a comparatively short run of nine months, for the first time in the partnership's history, the next opera was not ready. To make matters worse, Gilbert suggested a plot in which people fell in love against their wills after taking a magic lozenge – a scenario that Sullivan had previously rejected, and he now rejected the "lozenge plot" again. Gilbert eventually came up with a new idea and began work in May 1884.
The Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island Mill Road School in Merrick, taking up residence at the Roland Chatterton School in Merrick, which remains its Tuesday-night home to the present day. The 1980s brought major changes to the group, beginning with its name: In 1980, due to a consensus that the group had evolved into something larger in scope and more professional than the word “Workshop” suggested, the group’s name was officially changed to The Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island. Two years later the first of the three founding members left the group, as Norman “Buddy” Packer retired to Coconut Creek, Fla., where