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Pirates of Penzance (absolutely dreadful, DONT do it) Gilbert and Sullivan dreadful? Only in incompetent hands, trust me.
One of my first design jobs was for a production of
Gondeliers, which was directed by a guy who was a directing student at the time and has gone on to a pretty significant career. He was hired by this company because he was fairly hot-&^*% in school, and they thought they'd get this great talent (which he had in spades) for next to nothing. He told them he'd do it on two conditions: completely closed rehearsals and complete artistic control. Foolishly, they said yes.
He was my roommate at the time and said to me, "Look, I need a set for this. Dont give me anything strange or weird, just a simple, traditional
Gondeliers set." Immediately little red flags went off, but I did my resaearch and gave him exactly that. He took the working drawings, told me not to come back until opening night - if there was a problem, he'd deal with it. Further, I was forbidden to talk to the costumer, under pain of... well, real pain. :)
So I go to opening night. Here's the program. Here's your seat, Mr. Martin. Here comes the conductor; everyone applauds. He lifts his baton, and they go into the overture...
... of
Mikado.
Now, G&S overtures do tend to sound alike, so no one really caught on save those of us who know the scores. Overture over, audience applauds, curtain rises, and there's my set, with gondolas wafting in the background.
Three girls in kimonos come onstage and start singing
Three Little Maids. Now the audience is starting to figure that's something's wrong, and everyone starts laughing. The music grinds to a halt. The girls look at the set, the conductor, us, then themselves, and in unison scream, "^%&$%#%$&^$! It's
Gondoliers tonight!" They run off stage, the curtain crashes down, and we start completely over.
It was three hours of theatrical madness, where the production kept wandering into the wrong G&S play. I loved every minute of it, and it's one of those things I wish had been kept on video.
"That duck was a sexual toy, and it was on display!" -- an unknown Nashville town leader
