The Mikado - Centenary Celebration Production

As WWAOS enters its 100th year, the society is paying homage to its past, by revisiting the first ever production mounted by the society at its life-long home The Cecil Hepworth Playhouse.  With it's inaugural production taking place in the same venue which still houses our performances and with the very person whose name the building now bears waving the baton it is only fitting that WWAOS's Centenary Celebration production be The Mikado; last mounted by the society for it's 75th Anniversary.

The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is the ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations between W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time.  The Mikado is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. A satire of late 19th century British institutions, society and politics, which by setting in a fantasy Japan, an exotic locale far away from contemporary Britain, Gilbert was able to satirise British politics more freely and soften the impact of his criticisms of British social institutions, in a similar way that he used other "foreign" settings in Princess Ida, The Gondoliers, Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke.

​Director & Choreographer: James Palmer, Musical Director: Richard Stockton

Key Dates:
Intro: Thursday 20th February, 8pm
Auditions: Sunday 2nd March, 2pm
Tech: Sunday 8th June
Dress: Monday 9th June
Performances: Tuesday 10th - Saturday 14th June inc. Matinée