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A Duke Spin on ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’

Duke community members bring Gilbert and Sullivan productions to the stage

Derrick Ivey spends five nights a week planning scenes of bright 1940’s dresses and jazzy dances, sailor choruses, and a replica of a British naval warship, complete with portholes and smokestacks.

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Ivey, who designs costumes for the Duke Theater Studies department by day, spends his evenings leading “H.M.S. Pinafore” rehearsals in the downtown Durham Arts Council. For 14 years, he has served as the director and choreographer for The Durham Savoyards, a community theater group that presents Gilbert and Sullivan musical comedies.

“The actors are all volunteers, so they’re doing it because they love doing it,” Ivey said. “A lot of our participants are affiliated with Duke, either as employees or students or former students.  It goes back to the community theater aspect. Duke is a big part of the community.”

Duke faculty members who loved to sing together around a piano created the Durham Savoyards in 1963. At a party hosted by Dr. Patrick Kenan, former ear, nose and throat specialist at Duke, and his wife, a recording of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera “Iolanthe” was played, and the idea to produce Gilbert and Sullivan shows in Durham was born.

The first performance was “The Pirates of Penzance” in Durham High School’s auditorium in 1963, and through the mid-1990s, performances were held in Page Auditorium and Reynolds Industries Theater on West Campus.

This spring’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” cast continues the Savoyards’ connection to Duke. About a dozen active and retired Duke employees and alumni are serving in the stage chorus or as a social chair or producer, and Queen Victoria is a retired Duke Global Health Institute staff member.

Sonja Foust, senior program coordinator with Duke’s Office of News and Communications, said she grabs a quick bite to eat after work before heading to rehearsal, where she practices choreography and singing as part of the “H.M.S. Pinafore” stage chorus.

Her first show with The Durham Savoyards was “Princess Ida” in 2011, and she has performed in almost every production since.

“I love everybody who’s in it, and I wouldn’t spend so much time doing it if I didn’t like the people,” Foust said. “It’s social time for me.”

During some of the final evening rehearsals, Jenn Chambers expects to visit with cast members and add buttons, let out seams or shorten the sleeves to their costumes. Chambers, senior director of Alumni Education for Duke Alumni Affairs, got her start in theater costuming when she was a Duke freshman and took an “Introduction to Theater” class.

This year’s Durham Savoyards version of “H.M.S. Pinafore” is 1940s-themed and plays on the social class and military versus civilian commentary of the original 1878 production. The change in time period also transformed the costuming from Victorian-era dresses to 1940s wide-leg trousers and dresses with tucks and pleats.

“Being able to stretch that theatrical side of my brain a little bit more is always something I enjoy doing,” Chambers said. “I particularly like this time period. The ‘40s are fun. The fabric is fun. The cuts and lines on things are really nice and very flattering.”

Tickets are now on sale to see “H.M.S. Pinafore,” which runs April 14 through 17.