photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Emily Pons, left, as Mabel, and Patrick Kelly, center, as the Major-General, rehearse a scene from "Pirates! The Penzance Musical" on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

If you’ve never seen a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta like “The Pirates of Penzance,” director Jessica Franz-Martin thinks you probably picture something dry, stuffy and above all, British.

“Right?” she said. “Like, ‘In the 1880s, they were all stodgy and they listened to this and it was delightful.'”

But when Theatre Lawrence kicks off its 2026-27 season this weekend with “Pirates! The Penzance Musical,” you’ll hear how wrong that is – from W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan themselves.

Played by Theatre Lawrence regulars Patrick Kelly and Tom Emerson Jr., respectively, they inform the audience right at the start that “Pirates of Penzance” was done in America first. It was staged in the U.S. in 1879 so the writer and composer could secure an American copyright and stop theaters from pirating their plays.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Patrick Kelly, left, and Tom Emerson Jr., right, appear as Gilbert and Sullivan in “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

That’s all true. Whether they staged a special production in New Orleans with a jazz backing band is more doubtful. But Emerson said he’s confident the composer he plays would approve of something like that.

“I think Gilbert and Sullivan would love this massaging of their material,” Emerson said. “It makes fun of the same people that they made fun of, and the message is still current.”

A gentle massage is all “Pirates!” really is. The Big Easy-inspired treatment keeps the story – and the lyrics – mostly the same as what Gilbert originally wrote, about a band of unsuccessful swashbucklers who just want to get married, the daughters of an Army officer who catch their eye, and the buffoonish policemen too frightened to drive them off.

There are a few tweaks here and there – the Major-General’s daughters are first-wave feminists who want the right to vote, for instance. In the original, the cast extols the virtues of poetry in an overdramatic chorus near the end of Act I; in this version, they sing an ode to liberty and to New Orleans, conducted by the Pirate King himself.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Patrick Kelly, left, as the Major-General, and Spencer Greenwood, as the Pirate King, rehearse a number from “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

And, needless to say, a “Pirates of Penzance” set in America couldn’t end as the original one does, with the revelation that the marauders are all “noblemen who have gone wrong” and who really do love their Queen Victoria.

But you won’t find much changed about the police sergeant, another role played by Emerson, or his squad. They’re still a cowardly bunch, wearing taps on their shoes to alert the bad guys so they never have to encounter them. “I’m not the most adept tap dancer that this theater’s ever seen, but I can give it a shot,” Emerson said.

Nor is there much different about the Major-General, played by Kelly, other than that the coat he wears is blue, not red.

“He’s a little scatterbrained. He kind of heads off in all different directions,” Kelly said. “… He thinks everyone is watching him all of the time and has great respect for him, and how dare these pirates not understand that he is a major-general and his job is very well intact because he knows so many things. He’s very smart, but probably not in a way that’s helpful at all.”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Patrick Kelly, as the Major-General, rehearses a number from “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Tom Emerson Jr. appears as the police sergeant in a rehearsal of “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

The “Major-General’s Song” is mostly true to the original, too: the much-parodied, rapid-fire list of the things he does know, like quadratic equations and “the croaking chorus from ‘The Frogs’ of Aristophanes,” and the things he doesn’t, like military tactics and what a rifle looks like. (One minor change: in this one, you don’t have to know that “sat a gee” means “rode a horse.”)

“He would have been great at trivia night, for sure,” Kelly said. “But, like so many people who go to trivia nights, that’s where it ends.”

It’s worth noting, Emerson said, that there are still modern major-generals in America.

“Gilbert and Sullivan were, in their time, making fun of the British government and the British Army and the archetypes of that time. But those archetypes aren’t uniquely British,” Emerson said. “The foolish people in power, for example, is not uniquely British, as we can look around and see today.”

The “Major-General’s Song” is so widely parodied, said Franz-Martin, that “everybody knows it, even if they’ve never heard of Gilbert and Sullivan.”

Other songs, though, have a completely different feel than Sullivan’s original compositions. The adaptation was done by Rupert Holmes (also known for “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)”), and though they often start like Sullivan, they sometimes go in quite different directions – including a number where everyone on stage is playing jugs, washboards and other old-timey folk instruments.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The cast plays washboards, jugs and other folksy instruments in “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

“He does an amazing job of starting a song, like ‘Oh, I know that song!’ and just takes it on this jazz rollercoaster,” Franz-Martin said. “And you’re like, ‘How did no one do this before? It seems so easy! It makes so much sense!'”

“When Fred’ric Was a Little Lad,” about the unfortunate mishap that made a handsome and good-hearted youth into a pirate’s apprentice, has transformed into “a ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe’ number,” Franz-Martin said, with Frederic’s nurse Ruth sitting atop the piano, “taking that jazz alto and just rockin’ it.”

And there’s “Poor Wand’ring One,” normally a tender and romantic song where Mabel, one of the Major-General’s daughters, tells the lonely Frederic to “take heart, fair days will shine – take any heart – take mine.” Franz-Martin doesn’t want to spoil anything about Mabel in this show, but “let’s just say her purpose is a little different than you’re used to seeing.”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Shelby Easum, as Ruth, rehearses a number from “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Emily Pons, as Mabel, shares some encouraging words with the policemen in a rehearsal of “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

It may be more like a musical than an operetta, but it’s still a challenge to put on, Franz-Martin said. “It’s a lot of words, a lot of wit,” so the actors have to perfectly enunciate everything so none of it gets lost. And the physical comedy and movement have been just as important as the lyrics.

“Basically, constantly dancing,” she said. “I’m not one to really sit still.”

What she hopes is that it will give some people a taste of a classic show they might never have bothered with before.

“It can just feel unreachable sometimes,” Franz-Martin said. “‘That’s old-school. That’s very dry English wit with a lot of words I don’t understand.’ And I don’t think that’s true, but it’s easy to put that kind of gate between you and Gilbert and Sullivan.

“And I think this really helps. It knocks down the gate, it moves houses around so that everyone can just find it completely accessible.”

“Pirates! The Penzance Musical” starts Friday, Sept. 11, and runs through Sunday, Sept. 20, at Theatre Lawrence, 4660 Bauer Farm Drive. For showtimes or to purchase tickets, visit theatrelawrence.com.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The cast of “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” rehearses on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A funeral band passes by in a scene from “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Frightened policemen rehearse a number from “Pirates! The Penzance Musical” on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Theatre Lawrence.