The Yeomen of the Guard, or the Merry Man and His Maid

Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan – Book by Sir W.S. Gilbert

Alistair Donkin, Director, and starring Alistair as Jack Point
Brian Runnels, Music Director

Wortham Center Cullen Theater 500 Texas St., Houston, TX 77002 July 18, 19, 25, and 26 at 8:00pm July 20 and 27 at 2:30pm Pre-show lecture 45 minutes before curtain Ticket prices $41, $36, and $19 Tickets available now via this website or by phone beginning July 14, 2008 at 713-238-2325

Long considered by many critics to be the finest and most mature of all G & S operettas, The Yeomen of the Guard (or The Merryman and His Maid) is set, not in Topsyturvyland, but in a very explicit time and place, the Tower of London in Shakespearean England. The plot revolves around the courageous and honorable Colonel Fairfax, a man of science, who is unjustly doomed to be executed for sorcery. Phoebe Meryll, daughter of the sergeant who leads the Tower guards, is secretly in love with the dashing colonel but is pursued by the odious head jailer, Wilfred Shadbolt.

Into this tangle wander a strolling jester, Jack Point, and his companion (and the object of his affections), the charming singer Elsie Maynard. Elsie is convinced to marry Colonel Fairfax an hour before his execution so that the evil cousin who has plotted his execution will not inherit his estate.

After the wedding ceremony, during which Elsie is blindfolded, Colonel Fairfax escapes and then—of course (this is Gilbert and Sullivan!)--returns in disguise to try to win the heart of his new bride.

In the end, some lovers are happily mated, some are less happily mated, and one is brokenhearted…but through it all are the thrilling strains of some of the most wonderful music Sullivan ever wrote.

This is the same Yeomen (with some new faces) that was runner-up at the 1998 International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton, England. Some of the new faces performed in the our 2007 performances of Ruddygore which received high praise by the Houston Chronicle's performing arts critic.