Pirates! The Penzance Musical – 09 April 2025

Roundabout Theater Company’s swashbuckling re-setting of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance in New Orleans, Louisiana is the very model of a modern major musical. With astonishing (s)word play and piratical hijinks (Hi, Jinkx!), this production keeps you smiling and laughing the whole way through. The characters’ punderful precision coupled with semantic and situational seriousness is a tumultuous tongue twister of hilarious proportion that uses a combination of clever jokes and committed physicality to keep you on your toes at the edge of the plank (or your seat, if you happen to be in the audience). The story hinges upon themes of honesty, with a number of small well-intentioned lies stretching their way into absurdity as all characters (despite some conventionally being thought of as thriving on dishonesty) are actually striving to do and be good. They are all bound by a sense of duty, honor, morality, veracity, and selflessness— it’s sad that we find a world where everyone is genuinely desiring to be honest so humorous and far fetched. 

Pirates! The Penzance Musical departs from The Pirates of Penzance in several well integrated pieces from other Gilbert and Sullivan musicals plus a rather pointless introduction to the show by actors playing Gilbert and Sullivan. The introduction is awkward, but not objectionable, and the audience is quickly immersed in a world whose central conceit is using complex words to discuss very simple ideas. This cast gets the comedic timing perfectly, especially Modern Major General David Hyde Pierce, who stands out, even from this fantastic cast. Everybody who was onstage belonged there. Every ensemble member had a consistent characterization that made the scenes that were flooded with singers and dancers dynamic and interesting. The costuming (Linda Cho) reflected this individuality, and celebrated these characters. The only characters who were dressed all alike were the volunteer policemen whose outrageous dance moves and inability to do their jobs had some poignant undertones submerged beneath their mustached wave of blue.

The other design elements were equally strong, and the highly stylized scenic design (David Rockwell) painted a clear picture of a storybook fantasy world that wasn’t meant to be interpreted as realistic. Like the acting and costuming, lighting (Donald Holder), scenic, and sound (Mikaal Sulaiman) design solidly grounded the audience in a fun filled adventure where the only things taken seriously are lies. Though definitely suitable for children (there is not much explicit content), Pirates! The Penzance Musical is thoroughly enjoyable as an adult, particularly if you’re an adult who can shelve your need for everything to make sense and instead enjoy rapid fire wit and a couple of heart breaking moments.

One of the songs that was added to this show was “Alone, and Yet Alive” from The Mikado, a solo for Ruth (Jinkx Monsoon) in which we get a moment of clarity about what this rewrite is really about. While the original script is fun for fun’s sake, the thoughtful additions to act two round out the characters by bringing to light their loneliness. The pirates have been missing women for so long that they’re willing to jump on board to marry the first girls they see— because they’re lonely. The girls will pair themselves off with a random pirate because it seems exciting— and they’re lonely. Frederic (Nicholas Barasch) and Mable (Samantha Williams) fall for each other because they’re each the first person who will have the other — lonely! Ruth wants to marry the baby she raised as if she was his mother— lonely. The Pirate King (Ramin Karimloo) and Modern Major General both tell us quite clearly that they are lonely. So how is this story so much fun if all of the characters are secretly lonely? The key is in the finale, “We’re All from Someplace Else”. They are lonely together, and the collective desire to band together and have an adventurous life makes these characters bold and fun. Being together transcends their individual pain and allows them to be jolly. This cast, like these characters, feeds off of each others’ energy and becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

Pirates! The Penzance Musical is a truly beautiful celebration of how individuality and collectiveness can come together to create something wonderfully fun that holds space for laughter despite moments of sympathy. The characters are endearing, the design elements create a delightful fantasy world, and the positive energy of the production can be clearly felt in the house. Thematically there’s not much to unpack, but as the show sails off for the high seas and everyone hits their high C’s, it’s a show I highly recommend you see. If you need a laugh, this one’s for you.

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.