Pacific Opera Project Presents “H.M.S. Pinafore,” June 13-22

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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PACIFIC OPERA PROJECT PRESENTS
OUTDOOR PRODUCTION OF
GILBERT & SULLIVAN’S H.M.S. PINAFORE

June 13-15; 20-22, 2025
Heritage Square Museum, Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles, CA — Pacific Opera Project (POP) presents Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore on Friday, June 13, 2025 at 7:30PM; Saturday, June 14, 2025 at 7:30PM; Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 7:30PM; Friday, June 20, 2025 at 7:30PM; Saturday, June 21, 2025 at 3PM; and Sunday, June 22, 2025 at 7:30PM on the lawn of the Heritage Square Museum in Los Angeles. Directed by POP Artistic Director Josh Shaw and conducted by Opera Las Vegas Music Director Josh Horsch, the production will be performed outdoors and will feature table seating with wine included, and audience members are encouraged to bring food and drink. This production is a co-production with Opera Las Vegas, and will premiere in Las Vegas a week before it lands in Los Angeles.

One of the Gilbert and Sullivan’s Savoy operas, H.M.S. Pinafore originally premiered at the Opera Comique in London on May 25, 1878. Since then, H.M.S. Pinafore has become one of the most popular pieces of musical theatre in the UK and the United States, alongside Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Pacific Opera Project is no stranger to Gilbert and Sullivan, as they produced a harajuku-themed Mikado in 2013 and 2019, as well as an outdoor production of The Pirates of Penzance in May 2023. Much like Gilbert and Sullivan’s other Savoy operas, H.M.S. Pinafore is a comedy of manners. Josephine, daughter of Captain Corcoran, falls for a lowly sailor, Ralph Rackstraw, while her father wants her to marry the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Joseph Porter. However, Little Buttercup, a dockside vendor who boards the ship, has a secret that could upend Captain Corcoran’s plans for his daughter.

Artistic Director Josh Shaw has this to say about the production: “Following the enormous success of The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado at POP, there was no doubt in my mind that H.M.S Pinafore had to come next. Light, cheery, fun, frivolous — Pinafore is the perfect way to kick off the summer with a picnic and a few glasses of wine.”

Cast members for H.M.S. Pinafore include baritone André Chiang (Portland Opera, Glimmerglass) as Captain Corcoran, soprano Olivia Yokers (Dayton Opera, Cincinnati Opera) as Josephine, baritone Jake Stamatis (Sarasota Opera) as Sir Joseph Porter, contralto Emily Geller (Opera Santa Barbara, New York Opera Festival) as Buttercup, tenor Brian Wallin (Baltimore Concert Opera, Opéra de Montréal) as Ralph Rackstraw, bass-baritone Scott Levin (LA Opera, Opera Santa Barbara) as Dick Deadeye, tenor William Grundler (Long Beach Opera, Opera Santa Barbara) as Bill Bobstay, bass Phil Meyer as Bill Becket, and mezzo-soprano Lydia Mae Brown as Cousin Hebe.

General admission seating for H.M.S. Pinafore ranges from $15-$35. Tables for two start at $110 and tables for four start at $200. All tables include a bottle of wine. Additional wine is not available for purchase, however, audience members are encouraged to bring their own food and beverages, including wine and beer. Tickets can be purchased at pacificoperaproject.com.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:
PACIFIC OPERA PROJECTS PRESENTS H.M.S. PINAFORE
Who: Pacific Opera Project
When: Friday, June 13, 2025 at 7:30PM; Saturday, June 14, 2025 at 7:30PM; Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 7:30PM; Friday, June 20, 2025 at 7:30PM; Saturday, June 21, 2025 at 3PM; and Sunday, June 22, 2025 at 7:30PM
Where: Heritage Square Museum; 3800 Homer Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031
Cast: André Chiang as Captain Corcoran, Olivia Yokers as Josephine, Jake Stamatis as Sir Joseph Porter, Emily Geller as Buttercup, Brian Wallin as Ralph Rackstraw, Scott Levin as Dick Deadeye, William Grundler as Bill Bobstay, Phil Meyer as Bill Becket, and Lydia Mae Brown as Cousin Hebe
Creative Team: Josh Shaw, director; Josh Horsch, music director

About Pacific Opera Project

Founded in 2011 and based in Highland Park, Los Angeles’s Pacific Opera Project (POP) reimagines opera as an affordable adventure, by making unforgettable, entertaining performances accessible for all. A mobile opera company, POP has presented over 60 productions in more than 20 venues, reaching over 50,000 audience members. LA Magazine writes, “If you think you hate opera, you’ve probably never seen a Pacific Opera Project show.” POP’s regularly sold-out performances take place in a variety of venues that celebrate LA’s Northeast and Downtown communities, including outdoor museums and cemeteries, small clubs, amphitheaters, and warehouses. LA Weekly named POP the “Best Opera Company in Los Angeles” in 2018, writing, “making opera cool, affordable, accessible and enticing to young audiences is easier said than done. It’s also something every opera company in the country is trying desperately to do… [POP] is not trying desperately to be hip. It just is.” The LA Times recently named POP amongst the “Best of 2024” in classical music.

Known for unforgettable reimaginings of familiar operas, POP’s innovative productions have included the fan-favorite and critically acclaimed productions Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio set as an episode of Star Trek; a “fan-tastic” (LA Daily News) Harajuku-themed Mikado; #Superflute, a Magic Flute inspired by 1990s video games, called “one of the freshest takes on Mozart’s 1791 classic I have come across” (Operawire); and many more. POP’s signature take on Puccini’s La bohème, “AKA The Hipsters,” set in modern-day Los Angeles, has become a holiday tradition, returning year after year to sold-out audiences and called “riotous” (LA Weekly) and “an undeniably fun night at the theater that should not be missed” (Stage Raw).

During the pandemic, POP presented a revolutionary drive-in production of COVID fan tutte and the U.S. staged premieres of two Gluck operas, about which Opera Magazine wrote, “Despite this plague year of postponements, POP has refused to bow to the pandemic or its restrictions… There is surely no opera company in this Covid-ravaged country with a better average for 2020.” In April 2021, the LA Times noted that POP produced “the first major musical or theatrical event in Los Angeles County in nearly 14 months.” To this day, POP offers free live-streamed and archived performances that are available online to audiences around the world, garnering over 337,000 lifetime views.

In 2024, POP remounted its groundbreaking bilingual Japanese/English Madama Butterfly ???? performed in Little Tokyo’s JACCC Aratani Theatre. The LA Times hailed the production as “revisionist and enlightening,” continuing, “The singers… are believable and stunning. The tragedy has a kind of inevitability that feels more Mishima than the maudlin Italian original… Pacific Opera Project has a triumph on its hands.”

In addition to reimagining familiar favorites, POP is known for presenting undiscovered and forgotten gems, updated for modern audiences. POP presented the 2018 West Coast premiere of Giacomo Rossini’s rarely performed 1816 opera, La gazzetta “The Newspaper.” Opera Today raved about the premiere, writing “Director Josh Shaw has invested the proceedings with enough good comic ideas for at least three productions. Mr. Shaw has fashioned a take-no-prisoners approach to the staging, which was rife with clever touches… Pacific Opera Project has evidently hit on a winning formula for a night out, serving up food, drink, and an operatic discovery in equal measure.”

In 2024, POP presented the modern US premiere of Antonio Cagnoni’s bel canto meta-comedy, Don Bucefalo. Updated to the 1960s, the site-specific production was set and presented in Highland Park’s Garibaldina Society, recently featured in the LA Times for its family-style pasta dinners and Italian retro charm. To date, POP has presented four U.S. premieres, two world premieres, and three LA premieres.

POP’s Education & Community Engagement Department was established in 2021 to support ABIDE (Accessibility, Belonging, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity), by offering free engagement events and serving students in in-school and summer education programs. POP’s in-school programs are provided at no cost to Title I schools.

Learn more at www.pacificoperaproject.com.

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