The Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island a confirmed Savoyard. He’d served as vice president of the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Society, and even produced a televised version of The Mikado in 1949. When Helen Marx, president of the Camp Avenue School PTA, asked him if he could organize a fundraiser, his thoughts turned—as they so often did—to Gilbert & Sullivan. Initially the idea was for Packer and Waters to run an adult-education class in G&S that would culminate in a performance of The Mikado. But when Packer recruited an old friend, Sally Buckstone of Oceanside, to sing, the seeds of a new group were planted.
The Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island Company stalwarts Al Grand, Bob Tartell and Elaine Lerner, and directed by Sally Buckstone, what eventually became the Gilbert & Sullivan Yiddish Light Opera Company of Long Island developed Der Yiddisher Pinafore, Di Yam Gazlonim and Der Yiddisher Mikado, Yiddish versions of the beloved “Big Three” Savoy operas. Touring nationally and internationally, it marked out a unique corner of the Gilbert & Sullivan universe and made it its own. Two landmarks defined the 1990s for the Company: One was the development of the Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Orchestra of Long Island, under the direction first of founding music director