Gilbert and Sullivan, operetta creators. Librettist‐lyricist William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911) and composer Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842–1900) were first represented in America in 1875 by a failed production of their Trial by Jury. However, their H.M.S. Pinafore became one of the biggest successes in the history of the American theatre after its premiere during the 1878–79 season. So many companies were hurriedly put on the stage that contemporaries spoke of “a Pinafore craze.” More importantly (as detailed in the entry for the show), it opened all American stages to musical entertainments and served as a model for American musicals that shortly followed. All of their subsequent offerings received immediate American productions, the most successful being The Pirates of Penzance (1879), Patience (1881), and The Mikado (1885). By the turn of the century the vogue for these Savoyard gems waned, but there were many amateur groups dedicated to producing the works and also several mammoth all‐star revivals. Winthrop Ames's highly praised revivals in the 1920s once again whetted interest, as did visits of the D'Oyly Carte in the 1930s and revivals by Tyrone Guthrie. Sensing that the tradition of pure D'Oyly Carte no longer appealed to most Americans, Joseph Papp brought out a defiantly unconventional The Pirates of Penzance in 1981, a production that enjoyed far and away the longest run ever accorded a Gilbert and Sullivan work in America.

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.