The Festival Youth Production is always a highlight of the Gilbert & Sullivan Festival

The Festival Youth Production – would you like to join in?

The Festival Youth Production is always a highlight of the Gilbert & Sullivan Festival and we are always blown away by the energy and professionalism of the fantastic young people who take part. The production for next year will be a firm favourite The Pirates of Penzance and we are looking for a cast of young people aged between 9 and 19 years, who love to sing and act, to join the cast. This is a wonderful opportunity for participants to get involved in the Festival and learn how a production is directed and staged in just a week.

Rehearsals will be in Harrogate every day for a week before the performance on August 17th. Auditions for principal roles will be held in Harrogate in May. Please contact steph@gsfestivals.org for more information. If you are unable to attend you may send your audition piece by DVD or YouTube link to us in advance. No audition is necessary for chorus members. The performance will be accompanied by an orchestra of young musicians from local music colleges and universities and awards will be given for performers in the following categories: Best Male Voice, Best Female Voice, Best Character Actor and Best Character Actress.

The Youth Production is sponsored by the Friends of the International G&S Festival as part of its active programme of youth initiatives and provides an amazing opportunity for young people to learn about theatre, opera, singing, acting, and of course to be part of this amazing Festival. This year there will be a nominal charge of £30 per participant to help cover the cost to the professional chaperones needed and we do ask that you consider supporting the charity by becoming a member here.  We expect that all principals and chorus know the words of their parts before arriving at the first rehearsal due to the short time we have available. We do expect all cast members to provide their own libretto. We would suggest the Chappell’s edition (available on Amazon).
All participants will be sent and MP3 sound track to help with practice and a DVD of the most recent performance can be purchased from our Festival shop here.

Bus Pass Opera
– This will be the fifth year that the Festival has mounted a “Senior Citizens” show

The interest in this year’s Bus Pass Opera was tremendous and of course everyone was delighted that the company came third in the international competition. We have many new requests to participate in 2019 and so we have decided to present a “double bill” – Trial by Jury and HMS Pinafore, staged on August 13th.

The concept of Bus Pass was to give “retired” thespians the opportunity to come out of retirement and demonstrate their years of experience. Whilst this has generally succeeded we have also attracted two or three participants who will be the first to admit they have two left feet and no voice! We don’t want to start auditioning but our audience expect that standards will continue to rise. So…… this year we want to get it right. We have two shows to go at. We could have two casts if necessary.

Here is the application procedure. If you would like to be considered please email: steph@gsfestivals.org. Please indicate voice type and indicate if you have been in a previous Bus Pass Opera production. If you are applying for the first time please also include a brief summary of previous Gilbert and Sullivan experience. Please indicate if you wish to be considered for a part – which part(s).

Although the Bus Pass Opera Company is partly sponsored by the family of the late Andy Criddle and our own charity, costs continue to rise and there will be a nominal participating fee of £30 per person which will go towards the hire of costumes etc.

So if you may very well pass for 43 (60)in the dusk with the light behind you we will look forward to hearing from you

Do you have some party piece you would like to perform in the Utopia Pavilion?

Lunchtime Entertainment in the Utopia Pavilion

Every lunchtime throughout the Festival there is free, musical entertainment in the Utopia Pavilion from 1pm-1.30pm. Do you have some party pieces you would like to perform? If you would like to join in, please email steph@gsfestivals.org or post to the G&S Festival office in Halifax with details of your proposed programme and the date/s you would be available to perform. We will provide a pianist to accompany you if necessary.