The Tower of London has, for centuries, been the scene of intrigues both political and amorous. It is a fortress and prison, and its warders are the Yeomen of the Guard.

Our particular intrigue centers on Colonel Fairfax, who has been charged with sorcery and sentenced to die this evening. As the curtain rises, Phoebe Meryll, daughter of the Yeoman Sergeant, confesses her love for Fairfax to her "sour faced admirer" Wilfred Shadbolt, the Head Jailer. Phoebe hopes the Colonel will be reprieved before his sentence can be carried out.

With great ceremony, the Yeomen enter. Together with Dame Carruthers, housekeeper to the Tower, they tell of their pride and devotion to the old fortress. Sgt. Meryll describes his indebtedness to Col. Fairfax. With Phoebe and his son Leonard, newly arrived to join the Yeomen, Meryll hatches a plot to hide Fairfax until his reprieve arrives.

Enter Fairfax under guard, being transferred into solitary confinement in preparation for execution. He explains to Sgt. Meryll and Lieut. Cholmondely how the sorcery charge was brought against him by a rascally relative, who will inherit his estate if he dies unmarried. The Lieutenant agrees to help Fairfax thwart this scheme by finding him a wife.

Right on cue, a group of players appears, led by jester Jack Point and singer Elsie Maynard. After entertaining the crowd, they are rescued from its rowdier members by the Yeomen. The Lieutenant learns of Elsie's dire financial plight and offers her a handsome sum for a brief marriage to Col. Fairfax. Though Point is in love with Elsie, the assurance of Fairfax's imminent death quells his objections. The Lieutenant also hires Point as his personal jester.

While this is going on, Phoebe wheedles the keys to Fairfax's cell from Wilfred. Sgt. Meryll releases him, dresses him in a Yeoman's uniform, and introduces him to the Yeomen as his son Leonard. The time for the execution arrives, and all are assembled. Two Yeomen are sent to escort the prisoner to the block, but they find an empty cell. News of the escape leads to wild excitement. Point is in despair, and Elsie, distraught at the change in her situation, faints as the curtain falls on Act I.

Act II opens with the Yeomen confessing their failure to find the escaped prisoner. Dame Carruthers and the crowd deride them for their ineptitude. Point befriends Wilfred, and they concoct a ruse to make the people believe Fairfax died while trying to escape from the Tower.

Revealing to Sgt. Meryll and Fairfax (still disguised as Leonard) what they overheard Elsie say in her sleep as they nursed her back to health, Dame Carruthers and her niece Kate let Fairfax know that his mysterious bride is none other than Elsie, to his great delight.

Discharging a shot out of sight, Wilfred and Point execute their ruse. The crowd rushes in and hails Wilfred as a hero. With Fairfax supposedly dead, Point tries to convince Elsie to marry him, but Fairfax (as Leonard) woos and wins her for himself -- leaving both Point and Phoebe in despair.

Even though Fairfax's reprieve finally arrives, Phoebe has let slip the plot to shield him from the headsman. Wilfred and Dame Carruthers seize upon this information to blackmail Phoebe and Sgt. Meryll into marriage. But Fairfax can finally reveal his true identity to Elsie, to her great delight.

Resolving the tangled plots and counterplots leaves only Jack Point with nowhere to turn. Amid the general rejoicing, he pours out his sorrow and collapses as the final curtain falls.

-- Kurtiss Gordon

Overture

Act I:

1.	When maiden loves, she sits and sighs	Phoebe
2.	Tower warders, under orders	People and Yeomen with solo Second Yeoman
3.	When our gallant Norman foes	Dame Carruthers and Yeomen
4.	Alas! I waver to and fro	Phoebe, Leonard, and Meryll
5.	Is life a boon?	Fairfax
6.	Here's a man of jollity	People, Elsie, and Point
7.	I have a song to sing, O!	Elsie and Point
8.	How say you, maiden, will you wed	Elsie, Point, and Lieutenant
9.	I've jibe and joke	Point
10.	'Tis done! I am a bride!	Elsie
11.	Were I thy bride	Phoebe
12.	Oh, Sergeant Meryll, is it true? (Finale of Act I)	Ensemble

Act II:

13.	Night has spread her pall once more	People, Yeomen, and Dame Carruthers
14.	Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon	Point
15.	Hereupon we're both agreed	Point and Wilfred
16.	Free from his fetters grim	Fairfax
17.	Strange adventure	Kate, Dame Carruthers, Fairfax, and Meryll
18.	Hark! What was that, sir?	Elsie, Phoebe, Dame Carruthers, Fairfax, Wilfred, Point, Lieutenant, Meryll, People, and Yeomen
19.	A man who would woo a fair maid	Fairfax, Elsie, and Phoebe
20.	When a wooer goes a-wooing	Elsie, Phoebe, Fairfax, and Point
21.	Rapture, rapture!	Dame Carruthers and Meryll
22.	Comes the pretty young bride (Finale)	Ensemble

COSTUMES--Phyllis Jordan, Diane Kelton, and Elaine Walker, co-heads;

Sandra Burgess, Jamieson M. Cobleigh, Barbara Davis, Helen Davis, Cami Elbow, Barbara Freed, Caitlin Freed, Rebecca Freed, Doris Holden, Sandra Hreschuk, Abigail Howard, Marion Howard, Marese Dolan Hutchinson, Sue Keller, Louise Krieger, Wendy Larson, Nina R. Levin, Louise MacDonald, Alice Mertz, Rena Moore, Kelly Morgan, Yvonne Nicholson, Nancy Parland, Lois Smith, Ann Steinhauser, Sally Venman

MAKE-UP--Linda Stark, head;

Catherine Lee, Carol Lee, Henry Peirce, Ariane Tuominen, Lily Wood

HAIR DRESSING--Hair by Harlow

SET CONSTRUCTION and PAINTING--Lew Jordan, head;

Chris Riddle, scenic artist; Charles Beech, Rosemary Callahan-Gray, Connie Cappelli, Bryant Carpenter, Anne Clark, Jamieson M. Cobleigh, Jim Ellis, Jonathan Evans, Schuyler Evans, John Foster, Robert Graham, Jacqueline Haney, Sandra Hreschuk, Peter Jessop, David Kidwell, Louise Krieger, Nina R. Levin, Elysse Link, Steve Morgan, Lee Pershyn, Judi Pierce, Joe Pistrang, Alex Rosenthal, Ken Samonds, Linda Stark, Bill Venman, Jim Walker, Roger Wallace

LIGHTING--Matt Kimmel, head;

Esta Busi, Erin Freed, Jacqueline Haney, Daniel Kent, Matt Kinder, Cindy Mathews, Steve Morgan, Steve Robinson, Dave Stokes

PROPERTIES--Marese Dolan Hutchinson, head;

R. Dean Acheson, John Foster, Jacqueline Haney, Kevin P. Hutchinson, Judy Pistrang, and the costume and set crews

PROGRAM--Kurtiss Gordon, head;

Nicholas Dahlman, Cami Elbow, Louise Krieger, Fred Zinn

PUBLICITY and TICKETS--Steve Stoia, publicity; Laurel Kushi, tickets;

Pat Desmarais, Donna Roy, Maryanna Whittemore, and Town of Amherst Leisure Services

BANNER PAINTING--Alycen Waltein

USHER COORDINATORS--Barbara Davis and Abigail Howard

USHERS--Desiree Jarosz, Donna McArdle, and Sallie Swartz, co-heads;

Gabriella Booth, Michaela Booth, Ben Brassord, Sophie Crafts, Megan Devine, Schuyler Evans, Rebecca Freed, Julia Griffin, Benjamin Howard, Shelby Howland, Steve Howland, Wynter Howland, Leslie Johnson, Sally Lawton, Matt Lichtenstein, Sally Marcus, Melissa McClung, Claire Orvis, Laura Piela, Anthony Prinzivalli, Jeannine Rosen, Zachary Tanne, Justin Timlin, John Tobiason, Ariane Tuominen, Janet Vance, Killian Venman, Shoshana Weiner

COMPANY PHOTOGRAPHY

Deborah Campbell, Gigi Kaeser, Kathy L. Tobiassen

GIFT SHOP--Mimi Cary, head;

Teddy Milne, Rena Moore, Lee Pershyn

COMMISSARY--Mimi Cary, head;

Rena Moore

OUTREACH--Kathy Moser, head;

Esta Busi, Glen Gordon, Kurtiss Gordon, Marese D. Hutchinson, Nina R. Levin, Elysse J. Link, Ken Moore, Rena Moore, Paul E. Peelle, Kathy L. Tobiassen, Jim Walker, Roy Williams

COMPANY PARTY--Barbara Freed

PERFORMANCE REFRESHMENTS--Amherst Regional High School Theatre Company

Joseph Donohue -- Wilfred Shadbolt -- was the Captain in VLO's inaugural production of H.M.S. Pinafore. He played Pooh-Bah, "the most delicious role in comic opera," for VLO in 1996 and in Jim Ellis' January Term production at Mount Holyoke in 1974. In between, he has portrayed Dick Deadeye, King Gama, and other bass/baritone leads for VLO. Joe currently lives in Easthampton. By profession he is a theater historian and Professor of English at UMass, and has "no intention of retiring despite my advanced age."

Jim Ellis -- Jack Point -- has directed eleven fall productions for VLO over the years, including his own translation of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld in 1994 and last year's The Grand Duke. He has appeared with the group as Sir Joseph Porter, King Gama, and Ko-Ko. For Amherst Leisure Services he has directed The Music Man, Anne of Green Gables (in which he also played Matthew Cuthbert), Bye Bye Birdie, and The Secret Garden. He has also performed with the Mount Holyoke Summer Theatre and Hampshire Shakespeare, for which company he will direct Love's Labours Lost next summer.

Glen Gordon -- First Yeoman -- is one of the original members of the VLO, having appeared in every fall production but one (when he was on sabbatical). In The Grand Duke last year he portrayed Viscount Mentone, but most often he is a stalwart member of the tenor chorus. He also is an occasional rehearsal accompanist and has been known to play jazz ballads to relax himself and others prior to performances. Glen recently retired as Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Massachusetts.

John Healy -- Lieutenant -- was last seen as the Boatswain in VLO's 1993 production of H.M.S. Pinafore. John is an Occupational Therapist and, when not on stage, enjoys singing with the DaCamera Singers, an early music vocal group based in Amherst and Northampton.

Louise Krieger -- Phoebe -- was last seen here in 2000 in the title role of Iolanthe. Her other favorite VLO roles include Princess Zara in Utopia, Ltd. (1985) and Tessa in The Gondoliers (1992). On other valley stages, Louise has played Guenevere in Camelot and Irene Molloy in Hello Dolly (Westfield Theatre Group), Laurey in Oklahoma! and Abigail Adams in 1776 (Country Players), and Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance (R&L Productions). She has also been a guest artist with Hampshire Choral Society, Holyoke Civic Symphony, and in recitals. By day, she works in the Smith College Career Development Office.

Mzamo Mangaliso -- Second Yeoman -- has appeared in every VLO production since Princess Ida (1995). He particularly enjoyed being a pirate in The Pirates of Penzance. He is the Past President of the VLO Board. Mzamo founded, directed, and conducted the group Barwa, which performed South African songs to various audiences in the Valley. He is a Professor of Management at UMass. Mzamo and his wife Zengie have lived in Amherst for 18 years. Their daughters Bande and Unati were VLO ushers before going off to college.

Steve Morgan -- Sergeant Meryll -- has been involved with VLO since 1977 as performer, producer, and technician. He has recently been seen on stage with VLO in such roles as The Prince of Monte Carlo in last year's The Grand Duke, The Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe (2000), and the Major General in The Pirates of Penzance (1999). He lives in Leverett with his small family of amusing people and dogs, and, among other things, is production manager for Hampshire Shakespeare Company and part of the community effort to turn the old Amherst Cinema into a community performing arts and cinema center.

Nancy Parland -- Elsie Maynard -- last appeared with VLO as Mabel in the 1999 production of The Pirates of Penzance. In January of this year she played Lily in the Amherst Leisure Services Community Theater production of The Secret Garden, and was Maria in ALSCT's 1997 production of The Sound of Music. She has performed locally with The Country Players in Side by Side by Sondheim, and with Ashfield Community Theater as Elsa in The Amazing Einstein. She sings with the DaCamera Singers and is on the board of Ashfield Community Theater.

Matthew Roehrig -- Colonel Fairfax -- is appearing in his eighteenth role with VLO. Audiences will remember him as Grosvenor in Patience, François Villon in The Vagabond King, the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe, Jupiter in Orpheus in the Underworld, and Ludwig in last year's The Grand Duke. His other Pioneer Valley performances include Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, and El Gallo in The Fantasticks. He also appears regularly as a recitalist. Matt is a sixth grade teacher in Belchertown.

Mary Jane Schulze -- Dame Carruthers -- is playing her eleventh contralto lead for VLO in a run that began with Katisha (The Mikado) in 1977. She recently portrayed Lady Thiang in Commonwealth Opera's The King and I. Other credits include her "Mother" roles in Nunsense, The Sound of Music, and Bye Bye Birdie. In between, she played Miss Hannigan in Annie and Mame in Mame. Mary Jane is an elementary school music teacher in Ludlow.

Jacqueline Wallace -- Kate -- is making her VLO debut. She has sung for 10 years in the Wesley United Methodist Church Choir. Jacqui is a social worker and psychotherapist. She and her husband Roger live in Amherst. They have two children and four grandchildren.

Marc S. Winer -- Leonard Meryll -- has performed Billy Bigelow in Carousel. He sings with Novi Cantori and Arcadia Players, and is the youth choir director at First Congregational Church in Westfield. Marc works as an apprentice for a pipe organ company in Springfield. He lives in Agawam with his wife Michelle and daughter Mara. This is his first VLO appearance.

R. Dean Acheson -- Stage Director -- is a Midwesterner who grew up and was educated in Chicago, Kansas, and Indiana. He worked as a director-teacher-designer in Detroit, Michigan. Two years ago he and his wife moved into a beautiful 160 year old home in the city center of Williamsburg, MA. He has designed and directed Theatre for PVPA, Hampshire Shakespeare Company and Springfield College. He has designed sets for New Century Theatre, Enchanted Circle Theatre, and The Lost Nation Theatre. Last season he was introduced to VLO while working on lights for The Grand Duke. He spends his spare hours doing carpentry on homes here in the Valley.

Cami Elbow -- Coordinating Producer -- completes a five-year stint as producer this year and looks ahead to stepping down after Yeomen with mixed feelings: "Doleful, doleful! Rapture, rapture!" She has been involved in nearly every show since joining the chorus in 1989, and has also served in various front-of-house capacities and as president of the Board of Directors. Cami is a retired divorce mediator. She lives in Amherst with her husband Peter.

John Foster -- Producer -- got trapped by VLO in the 1988 spring production of The Grand Duke and has been a regular ever since. Retiring from Hampshire College eight years ago after 25 years as a Professor of Biology, he now has a new job making bows, barrels, cuckoo clocks, and divers other paraphernalia dreamed up by the stage directors. This year he's happy to share the stage with his son-in-law John Healy. This is his fourth season as a producer. John lives in Amherst with his wife Nancy.

Richard Gregory -- Costume Designer -- joins us for his sixteenth VLO production. He has designed costumes for most of VLO's shows since 1985. He also directed one of those productions (Utopia, Ltd.) and designed sets for three others. Dick has been seen on the boards as Cupid in Thespis and the Duke of Plaza Toro in The Gondoliers. He designed sets for Commonwealth Opera's Kismet. A teacher of arts history at Williston-Northampton School, Dick has composed several operas and many choral works.

Jacqueline Haney -- Producer and Stage Manager -- has worked with VLO and many other local theatre groups since moving to the Pioneer Valley in 1993. Her next big challenge is directing Once Upon a Mattress for Westfield Theatre Group in the spring of 2003. When she isn't at rehearsals, Jacki is a student at UMass in the University Without Walls program.

Juli E. Holmes -- Music Director -- has directed the Amherst Community Band since 1998. This is Juli's second foray wielding the baton for VLO, after The Grand Duke last year, and she prefers the view from the podium to being a member of the orchestra. She also plays horn with the Pioneer Valley Symphony, Massachusetts Wind Orchestra, and other area organizations. Juli teaches instrumental music in School Union #38 (Conway, Deerfield, Sunderland, and Whately), and lives in Amherst with two beautiful daughters.

Lew Jordan -- Technical Director -- started working on sets for VLO in 1995, so he could see more of his wife Phyllis and daughter Karen, who were sewing costumes for Princess Ida. The next year he was assistant stage manager for The Mikado, and then co-technical director for three years. He also served on the VLO Board. In addition, Lew has stage managed for the Saint Brigid's Players. By day, he is a network specialist at UMass.

Matt Kimmel -- Lighting Designer -- is working on his eighth VLO production, having started as a stage hand in 1994. This is his third time lighting the VLO stage; he has also acted as master electrician, stage manager, and assistant director, and he serves on the Board of Directors. With several other theatre groups in the area, Matt has directed (Flowers for Algernon, Little Shop of Horrors), designed lights (You Can't Take It With You, Welcome, Yule!), and done pretty much anything else they'll let him do. In what passes for "real life," Matt heads the programming department at a computer game company in Northampton.

Kathy Moser -- Assistant Music Director -- started performing with VLO by taking a small principal role in The Gondoliers in 1980. She has been in every subsequent show, primarily as a staunch member of the chorus. Kathy's first stint as Assistant Music Director came in 1992, with VLO's second production of The Gondoliers. She chairs the Outreach and Education Committee. Kathy co-produced VLO's twentieth anniversary show. She teaches vocal music at Frontier Regional School in South Deerfield.

DeAnne Riddle -- Choreographer -- choreographed VLO's The Grand Duke last year. Her previous VLO experience includes assistant choreographer (The Mikado, 1987, and H.M.S. Pinafore, 1993) and set crew (Iolanthe, 2000). She has choreographed 16 cantatas for the Grace Church Junior Choir, takes ballet classes regularly, and performed in Amherst Ballet's The Magician's Nephew in 2000. DeAnne is the business manager for the Preschool Enrichment Team in Springfield.

Ken Samonds -- Set Designer -- returns to VLO after a hiatus of 13 years. He began as a chorus member after sitting in the audience saying "Those folks look like they're having such a good time," then started designing sets (just because he thought he could) with the production of Iolanthe in 1986. He designed four fall shows for VLO, and numerous others for various community theater groups in the area. When not confined in the Bloody Tower, Ken is a Professor of Nutrition at UMass.

Linda Stark -- Make-up Designer -- is designing make-up for her eighth VLO production. Linda studied fine art and received a degree in interior design at the University of Connecticut. She also studied painting in Italy and watercolor in New York, under the instruction of well-known American artists Sondra Frectleton and Jack Beal. Linda has lived in Amherst for 31 years. She is the mother of four and a grandmother. She is a trained pastry chef and runs a home business making wedding and special occasion cakes.

Elaine Walker -- Costume Coordinator -- has sung soprano in the VLO chorus for many years and served as co-head of the costume crew every year since 1988. She served as a producer for eight years, and she co-founded and produced several musical shows with the St. Brigid's Players in Amherst. She also supervises the costume shop for the Theater Program at Hampshire College. Elaine is self-employed as a dressmaker in Amherst.

The Yeomen of the Guard, eleventh of the fourteen collaborations of Gilbert and Sullivan, was the favorite of both author and composer (to say nothing of many members of the VLO), but has never been so highly rated by the public. Its designation as a "new and original opera," with no qualifying adjective such as "comic" or "nautical," may account for this discrepancy. As anyone who can whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore knows, Gilbert's prevailing genius was for comic inversions delivered as patter. For Yeomen, he decided to play it straight and wrote a very self-revealing, sentimental libretto about a merryman moping mum, which Sullivan found a "pretty story, no topsy-turvydom, very human and funny also."

Gilbert claimed that his immediate inspiration came from a poster, an advertisement for the Tower Furnishing Company depicting a beefeater, or tower warder, standing before the Tower of London. Beyond this, he drew on a range of earlier material, his own and others'. Punch, reviewing the opening performance of 3 November 1888, was wickedly eager to point out how much the plot resembled Fitzball and Wallace's Maritana (1845), in which Don Cesar, in prison and condemned to death, marries a veiled gypsy dancer (Maritana), escapes, returns in disguise, and falls in love with his bride. Surprisingly, no one seemed to remark on the greater number of parallels with Harrison Ainsworth's historical novel The Tower of London (1840), in which one Cuthbert Cholmondely falls in love with Cicely, the "rose of the tower," and is locked in a dungeon by the jealous chief jailer, Master Lawrence Nightgall, whose keys are stolen to secure Cuthbert's release. Some of Gilbert's earlier poems, his Bab Ballads, also figure in the mix, most especially "Annie Protheroe," a tender tale of a postmistress engaged to a jealous executioner who holds back the reprieve of her imprisoned rival suitor. Even Jack Point's jests are jokes that Gilbert had already cracked in other contexts, the one about sitting down on the spur of the moment having been aired no fewer than three times before.

The best-loved and most remembered song in Yeomen, the duet "I have a song to sing, O!," proved the most difficult for Sullivan to set, and it was not until Gilbert hummed him a few bars of the sea chantey he had had in mind when writing the lyrics (a song very like "Green grow the rushes, ho!") that the composer found his melodious way. When Gilbert distributed parts to the company at the first reading, he told Jessie Bond, the original Phoebe, "Here you are, Jessie, you needn't act this, it's you." A jealousy song for Wilfred was cut shortly before opening night, and one for Sergeant Meryll ("A laughing boy but yesterday") was heard that night only. The rollicking duet for Meryll and Dame Carruthers ("Rapture, rapture!"), inserted to give Elsie time to change into her wedding costume, was later dropped by the D'Oyly Carte Company.

Both the beginning and the end of this opera are like nothing else in G&S, the first number a wistful solo rather than a rousing chorus, and the last combining the predictable comic wedding with the unexpected fate of Point, who "falls senseless." Every comic baritone who has played the role has had his own theory as to whether Point dies or not, and if so, of what. The original Point, George Grossmith, did not die. His successor, Henry Lytton, did, and claimed that Gilbert approved: "Jack Point should die and the end of the opera should be a tragedy." J. M. Gordon, longtime D'Oyly Carte stage manager, is probably more reliable in recording Gilbert's words: "The fate of Jack Point is in the hands of the audience, who may please themselves whether he lives or dies."

-- Jim Ellis

Valley Light Opera expresses thanks to the following for helping to make this production possible: the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools' staff, especially Maryanna Whittemore of the Superintendent's Office, the music and theater faculty, and the custodial staff, for their good nature, flexibility, and unstinting support; the Town of Amherst Department of Public Works for hanging the banner; Glenn Siegel and WMUA for public service announcements; the UMass Fine Arts Center for production assistance; Hampshire College for costumes; Kamins Real Estate for locating and Jones Properties for providing space as VLO begins processing materials for a permanent archive collection; and to Sally and Bill Venman for caring for the VLO year-round and always being there when we sought advice.

Valley Light Opera is on the World Wide Web at http://www.vlo.org/. We express our gratitude and appreciation to BerkshireNet for hosting our site. BerkshireNet (http://www.berkshire.net/) provides Internet service to Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Valley Light Opera, Inc., is a nonprofit Massachusetts corporation founded in 1975 by a group of Gilbert and Sullivan devotees. Over the years, VLO has been guided by two principles--to promote broad community participation and to produce fine entertainment. In the course of its first 25 years, Valley Light Opera has produced all fourteen of the G&S operas as well as Cox and Box, The Zoo, and Sullivan's oratorio The Prodigal Son. In addition, VLO has performed Rudolf Friml's The Vagabond King, Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, John Philip Sousa's El Capitan, Warren Martin's The True Story of Cinderella, and several of Peter Schickele's P.D.Q. Bach works.

The affairs of VLO are in the hands of a Board of Directors elected by the membership at the Annual Meeting in February. Officers of the Board this year are Steve Tanne (President), Mzamo Mangaliso (Past President), Kurtiss Gordon (Clerk), and James Walker (Treasurer). Members of the Board are Esta Busi, Barbara Davis, Jim Ellis, Glen Gordon, Matt Kimmel, Ken Moore, Rena Moore, Kathy Moser, Dick Stromgren, Kathy Tobiassen, and Roy Williams.

Donations to Valley Light Opera are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

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