Antique props, colorful choreography shine in Geyer theater's upcoming 'Pirates of Penzance'

For director Martha Oliver, the Geyer Performing Arts Center’s upcoming performance of “Pirates of Penzance” was a long time coming.

“I have wanted to do this since 1982. That’s 40 years,” Oliver said.

As a young actress, Oliver performed in a Penn State Fayette rendition of the classic musical in the role of one of the Major-General’s daughters. Ever since, she’s wanted to bring the show to the Geyer.

“I loved this show so much that I have wanted to put it on since then,” she said. “I’ve got a wonderful cast, and I’m thinking it’s going to be terrific.”

The show, which runs at 7:20 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2:30 Sunday, follows pirate apprentice Frederic along with a cast of other pirates and bureaucrats through swashbuckling action and high-seas adventure.

To bring the show to life, the theater is pulling out a treasure from its own history — a set of forest backdrop flat paintings from 1902.

“The old flats that we are using were original with the theater,” Oliver said. “They were painted by really good professional painters. They’re really beautiful. We use them for some shows, not all shows, but when it’s nice to have a woodland or an outdoor scene. When you get close to them, you can see how the techniques they used to paint them are so skillful.”

Performance highlights

Also called an operetta, the Gilbert and Sullivan show is somewhere between a musical and an opera, explained Ashleigh Weimer, the actress playing Mabel, one of the show’s female leads.

“The general musical ability for this entire show is very advanced, I would say,” she said. “Operettas tend to have some dialogue, they tend to be more comedic, which is what this show is.”

Weimer’s character in particular showcases some feats of vocal performance, she said.

“I love my aria — Mabel goes up to a high E flat, which is very high, it’s basically up in the whistle register,” Weimer said. “It’s the very top of my range, so it’s going to be hit or miss whether I get that E flat or not.”

A West Deer resident, Weimer got involved with the theater in 2022, when her daughter was a part of a performance of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” This will be her second time on the Geyer stage — though when she was growing up, she performed at the theater when it was the Scottdale Showtime Theater.

“I am more into classical singing — my training is classical singing, and so I was interested in auditioning for that reason,” she said. “I wanted to do something for myself, something that I enjoy doing.”

The satiric and comedic aspects of the performance and the choreography stand out to Weimer and Oliver.

“The music is really, really beautiful, but we are also tapping into some of the comedic parts of it,” Oliver said, noting the musical’s bumbling policemen and blustering generals. “It’s very funny.”

Tickets for the show are available online.