By Kenneth Jones
03 Nov 2004

Hal Linden in The Pirates of Penzance
photo by Carol Rosegg

Tony Award-winner Hal Linden, of Broadway's The Rothschilds and TV's "Barney Miller," will be the very model of a modern major general in The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players' Jan. 7-23, 2005, production of The Pirates of Penzance.

Performances play New York's historic City Center on West 55th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.

Under the artistic and music direction of Albert Bergeret, the company and its 25-piece orchestra has presented over 2,000 performances throughout the United States, Canada and England.

This marks Linden's first brush with the patter songs, marches and love ballads of G&S. The actor has appeared in 20 Broadway and touring Broadway musicals including Bells Are Ringing, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Subways Are for Sleeping, The Apple Tree, Ilya Darling and, most recently, The Sisters Rosensweig, I'm Not Rappaport, Chicago and Cabaret. He won his Tony Award playing patriarch Mayer Rothschild in the Sheldon Harnick-Jerry Bock musical, The Rothschilds

Joining Linden will be Ross David Crutchlow as the Pirate King; Andrew MacPhail as Frederic; Keith Jurosko as Sergeant of Police; Laurelyn Watson as Mabel and Angela Smith as Ruth.

The Pirates of Penzance, or The Slave of Duty was first performed at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on Dec. 31, 1879.  According to production notes, "It was Gilbert & Sullivan's fifth collaboration and their only operetta to have its world premiere in the United States: an unsuccessful effort to secure an international copyright for their works, which had regularly been produced in the U.S. without their consent."

Billed as the 125th anniversary production, the NYGASP staging will feature costumes designed by Gail J. Wofford; lights designed by Sally Small and scenery by LouAnne Gilleland.

Weekend performances play Fridays at 8PM; Saturdays at 3 & 8 PM and Sundays at 3 PM.  Tickets range in price from $40-$85.  (Family Package discounts of $70 and $60 are available for five or more in the top prices.)

For more information and tickets, visit the City Center box office, phone CityTix (212) 581-1212 or visit www.citycenter.org.

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According to NYGASP notes, "Set on the rocky coast ofCornwall, England, The Pirates of Penzance centers on a band of tenderhearted pirates celebrating the coming of age of their apprentice, Frederic.  Although Frederic's apprenticing to pirates was the mistake of his nurse maid Ruth, he has dutifully served, but he now announces his plan to devote his life to the extermination of piracy.  The naīve young man meets a group of beautiful girls, their father, the delightfully dotty Major General Stanley (Hal Linden), and enlists the help of some bumbling and diffident policemen.  But Ruth and the Pirate King tell Frederic that his apprentice papers state that he won't be of age until his 21st birthday, which won't occur until the distant date of 1940 because Frederic was born in leap year on the 29th of February.  Frederic is doomed to remain the pirate apprentice.  The policemen try to capture the pirates on their own, but are easily defeated.  Everyone is happy to discover that the pirates are really all 'noblemen who have gone wrong,' so all is forgiven in the end."