“We’re here, and we’re producing, and we’re producing some interesting things,” said Scott Ellis, a longtime Haimes collaborator who serves as Roundabout’s interim artistic director, and is expected to remain in that role for at least two years. . “I thought it was important to say that we are committed to producing as many shows as we used to.”
“The Pirates of Penzance,” a comedy about an indentured pirate’s apprentice who falls in love with a military officer’s daughter, was once a staple of American theater and was performed a whopping 26 times on Broadway, starting in 1879. But The last Broadway revival was in 1981.
This new production, directed by Ellis, features a re-conceived book, score and setting: it will be set in New Orleans, with a framing device that imagines Gilbert and Sullivan performing “The Pirates of Penzance” there. The script has been adapted and updated (the female characters are more capable than in historical productions, for example) by Rupert Holmes, who has also written some new lyrics; The score has been re-orchestrated with jazz stylings by Joseph Joubert and Daryl Waters.
The show will star Ramin Karimloo, last seen on Broadway in a 2022 revival of “Funny Girl,” and David Hyde Pierce, best known for the TV show “Frasier” and now appearing Off Broadway at The Shed , in Stephen Sondheim’s posthumous film. musical “Here we are.” Karimloo will play the Pirate King, while Pierce will play Major General Stanley and Gilbert, who is now a character explaining to the audience the conceit of the adaptation. The two tried out for the roles at a one-night benefit concert at Roundabout in 2022.
The production of “Yellow Face,” which will begin performances in September, will star Daniel Dae Kim, who in 2016 played the King of Siam in a Broadway revival of “The King and I” and is an alumnus of the TV shows “Lost” and the “Hawaii Five-0” reboot. The play will be directed by Leigh Silverman, who in 2007 directed productions of it in Los Angeles (at the Mark Taper Forum) and New York (at the Public Theater). Kim recently recorded an audio version of the play for Audible, also directed by Silverman.
