PULLMAN, Wash.–Washington State University’s Summer Palace 1998 opens its season Friday, June 26, with the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta “The Sorcerer.”
The plot is as light and airy as all of the Gilbert and Sullivan offerings, said director Paul Wadleigh. Alexis, a young aristocrat played by Andrew Mielke, is in love and engaged to be married to the beautiful Aline, played by Tammi Huber. So in love that he believes everyone should share his blissful state. Alexis employs a sorcerer from London, John Wellington Wells, played by Eric Starker, to brew up a love potion that is secretly served to the entire village at a lawn fete. This results in the most unlikely and incongruous pairings.
Wadleigh said the plot is full of the usual and delightful twists, upsets and romantic entanglements, but everything turns out all right in the end.
“‘The Sorcerer’ is possibly the most neglected of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas,” Wadleigh added. “Why this is, we don’t know, because the music is as melodic and charming and the humor is certainly as sprightly and the plot as outlandish as ‘HMS Pinafore’ or ‘The Pirates of Penzance.'”
“The Sorcerer” also will be performed Saturday, June 27, and July 2-3 and 10-11. The curtain opens each evening at 8 p.m. on the Bryan Hall Auditorium stage.
The second show of the Summer Palace season will be Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” opening July 17 at 8 p.m. in the Bryan auditorium. It continues July 18 and 24-25, and July 31-Aug. 1.
Tickets are on sale at the Bryan Hall box office from 1-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. Additional information is available by calling 335-7236.
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