‘Pirates of Penzance’, ‘English’ and ‘Yellow Face’ on their way to Broadway

“We’re here and we’re producing and we’re producing some exciting things,” said Scott Ellis, a longtime Haimes collaborator who is serving as Roundabout’s interim artistic director and is expected to continue in that role for years to come . at least two years. “It felt important to say that we are committed to producing as many shows as we have in the past.”

“The Pirates of Penzance,” a comedy about a pirate trainee who falls in love with a military officer’s daughter, was once a staple of the American theater and was performed on Broadway no fewer than 26 times starting in 1879. The last Broadway revival was in 1981.

This new production, directed by Ellis, features a redesigned book, score and setting – it will be set in New Orleans, with a setting that imagines Gilbert and Sullivan performing “The Pirates of Penzance” there. The script has been adapted and updated (the female characters are more capable than, for example, in historical productions) by Rupert Holmes, who has also written some new texts; the score has been re-orchestrated with jazz styles by Joseph Joubert and Daryl Waters.

The show stars Ramin Karimloo, who was last seen on Broadway in a 2022 revival of “Funny Girl,” and David Hyde Pierce, best known for the television show “Frasier” and now starring in Off Broadway, at the Shed, in Stephen Sondheim’s posthumous film. musical ‘Here we are’. Karimloo will play the Pirate King, while Pierce will play both Major General Stanley and Gilbert, who is now a character who explains the conceit of the adaptation to the audience. The two tested the roles during a one-day Roundabout benefit concert in 2022.

The production of “Yellow Face,” opening in September, will star Daniel Dae Kim, who played the King of Siam in a 2016 Broadway revival of “The King and I” and is an alumnus of the television shows “Lost” and the “Hawaii Five-0” reboot. The play will be directed by Leigh Silverman, who directed productions of it in 2007 in Los Angeles (at the Mark Taper Forum) and New York (at the Public Theater). Kim recently recorded an audio version of the piece for audiblealso directed by Silverman.