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Artistic
Director
Ralph MacPhail, Jr.
Professor
of Theatre, Communication Studies, and English emeritus
Artistic Director, The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin |
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 Ralph
MacPhail, Jr., was born in Arlington, Virginia, on the 64th
anniversary of "the Pinafore Riot" at London's
Opéra
Comique in 1879. (The task of calculating his age he'd rather
leave to you.)
He received a B.A. in English from Bridgewater
College in Virginia, served in the U. S. Army in Viet Nam,
and then took his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Theatre (Directing
Emphasis) from Virginia Commonwealth University.
In 1972, he returned to his alma mater Bridgewater College as Instructor of Theatre,
Speech, and English and Director of Theatre, and retired as Professor emeritus
in May of 2005. During that time he directed 66 full-length plays and musicals
at the college and many smaller productions as well.
 In 1966, the original Gilbert & Sullivan troupe, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company,
visited Washington, D.C., and MacPhail saw three productions in one week. "My
life hasn't been the same since," he admits, "for I was totally smitten
with the colorful, tuneful, and traditional productions, and I promptly began
seeking books and records (and anything else for that matter) connected with
'G&S'."
Five years later he put his new scholarship (and library) to
work as a part of his Master of Fine Arts thesis project at
Virginia Commonwealth University; it
consisted of productions of the full-length version of Sir Arthur Sullivan's
first comic opera Cox and Box and Sir William S. Gilbert's Shakespearean burlesque
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. (The Cox and Box research was subsequently expanded
and published in 1974 in a small monograph on the history of Sullivan's comic
opera and the farce that formed its basis. The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern research
was subsequently expanded and presented as "Bab and the Bard: Gilbert's
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern" at the W. S. Gilbert Sesquicentennial Conference
at M.I.T. in 1986.)
 MacPhail
directed six productions of Savoy operas at Bridgewater College,
but
most of his "G&S" directorial work has been done for other theatres:
Oak Grove Theatre, the Shenandoah Valley Choral Society, the Richmond Opera Company,
Barksdale Theatre, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Northwest Louisiana,
the
Virginia Commonwealth University Opera Theatre, and
most recently the Austin Gilbert & Sullivan Society, for whom he has directed
nine productions since the summer of 1998. In the fall of 2005, he was
named the Society's first Artistic Director, and he is looking forward to returning
to Austin this summer to direct The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman
and his Maid. As this production closes, a revival of his production of
Gilbert’s
Sweethearts, directed for the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Northwest Louisiana
in 2008, will be presented in Shreveport and then moved to the International
Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Scholarship has taken him to the Gilbert & Sullivan Archive the Pierpont
Morgan Library in New York, Sir Arthur Sullivan's Diaries at the Beinecke Rare
Book Library at Yale, the W. S. Gilbert Papers at the British Library, and (thanks
to the permission of the Late Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte) the D'Oyly Carte Opera
Company Archive in London. "It was indeed a moving experience to take notes
from the 1885 promptbook for the original production of The Mikado--and to compare
this resource with the promptbooks subsequently used in revivals and by touring
companies in the decades that followed," he notes. Dame Bridget also made
available the brittle and yellowing Company "press books" containing
original reviews--gold mines of specifics regarding the original production.
 Other scholarly activities include an invitational book review
of Harold Orel's
Gilbert & Sullivan: Interviews and Recollections for English Literature
in
Transition: 1880-1920 and the "Gilbert & Sullivan" entry for G.
A. Cevasco's The 1890s: An Encyclopedia of British Literature, Art, and Culture.
During the several years, he has reviewed three Gilbert & Sullivan-related
book proposals and manuscripts for Oxford University Press, and his endorsements
appear on the dust-jackets of two of these books (and another published by Associated
University Presses of London, Canada, and the U.S.).
The Mikado has continued to be the focus of MacPhail's research. In addition
to annotating the original 1885 libretto, he has given much attention to The
Swing Mikado (the 1938-39 "black" production by the Federal Theatre
Project), The Hot Mikado (producer Michael Todd's competing production), and "The
Red Mikado" (Harold Rome and Joseph Schrank's satirical sketch on these
two productions which formed a part of the long-running revue Pins and Needles).
The results of this research were shared at the Basingstoke! Gilbert & Sullivan
conference at West Chester University and before a more diverse audience at the
Federal Theatre Festival at the Institute of New Deal Culture, George Mason University.
Subsequently, he shared his researches on these shows at the first Gilbert & Sullivan
Festival Symposium in Buxton, England; with the Gilbert & Sullivan Society
of London; at most recently at the Rush Rhees Library at the University of Rochester.
In retirement, MacPhail hopes to pull all of these scripts and their histories
together for a book called The Mikado: Red, Hot, and Swing!
His interest in The Mikado has led to interesting adventures and surprising
phone
calls. He was invited by the Curator of the Gilbert & Sullivan Collection
at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York to help with the initial selection
of treasures to form the basis for the 1985 exhibition "The Mikado:
A Centenary
Celebration," and one day he received a call from director Peter Sellars
who was planning his contemporary interpretation of The Mikado for the
Lyric Opera of Chicago. Several years ago, British film director Mike Leigh's
researcher
Rosie Chambers called MacPhail from London seeking information on the original
production of The Mikado while preparing background information for Topsy-Turvy,
Mr. Leigh's acclaimed film on Gilbert & Sullivan and their sometimes-tempestuous
creative process. A more recent Mikadoing was staging the comic opera
for the Virginia Commonwealth University Opera theatre in Richmond, Virginia,
during
the spring of 2008.
 MacPhail also carries on an extensive correspondence with Gilbert & Sullivan
scholars, performers, collectors and enthusiasts throughout the English-speaking
world. And for five years in the 1990s he hosted SavoyNet, the International
Gilbert & Sullivan Internet Bulletin Board, from the information technology
center at Bridgewater College. He is also serving on the editorial board of The
Gilbert Edition, an ambitious project with the goal to bring all of W. S. Gilbert's
writings together between covers of a multi-volume set--and perhaps "publish" the
same in CD-ROM format, and in April 2007 he was invited to join the Editorial
Board of Broude Brothers' critical edition of the operas of Gilbert & Sullivan.
MacPhail taught Gilbert & Sullivan Elderhostel courses
for five years at Bridgewater College in the 1980s, and this
fall he will return to the Incarnation Center in Ivoryton,
Connecticut, for the sixteenth year to teach courses on the
Savoy operas: this year’s course, "Gilbert & Sullivan
and The Gondoliers," which will culminate in a concert
production of highlights from this G&S opera. Since retiring
from Bridgewater College, he also traveled to Medford, Oregon,
to teach such courses twice at Rogue Valley Manor—and
will return again in July to teach a course on “Pira-Mika-Fore;
or, The Big Three.” He lectured on The Mikado at the
University of Michigan for the Fulbright Society, and closer
to his home--two blocks away, in fact--he taught a course for
the local Lifelong Learning Institute on H.M.S. Pinafore. He
also enjoys making informal presentations to local community
groups interested in the Savoy operas.
In February 1999 he spoke at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on the Gilbert/Sullivan/D'Oyly Carte collaboration--the last of a series of three lectures celebrating the 75th Anniversary of New York's Blue Hill Troupe. This led to an invitation to return to New York several weeks later to participate in a symposium on updating Gilbert & Sullivan.
The symposium was a part of the New York Gilbert & Sullivan
Players' 25th anniversary, celebrated on Broadway at Symphony
Space. In May of this year, he will deliver the first Jay Newman
Memorial Lecture on Gilbert and Sullivan and the Pierpont Morgan
Library at the invitation of the Gilbert & Sullivan Society
of New York.
In addition to directing and scholarship, MacPhail continues to build an extensive
collection of memorabilia connected with Gilbert & Sullivan. Several years
ago he exhibited items from his collection and gave two presentations at the
Gilbert & Sullivan Collectors' Symposium and Showcase at the State University
of New York, Purchase. He enjoys exhibiting portions of his collection to enhance
his theatrical productions.
Ralph MacPhail, Jr., lives in Bridgewater with Alice, his college sweetheart
and wife of 42 years, in the Victorian house that once belonged to his mother's
family. Their son, Alexander, who graduated from Bridgewater College in 1997,
is an Episcopal priest; he and his wife, the Reverend Karin MacPhail, are parents
of Peter Alexander and Margaret (“but call me Maggie”) Alice. Alexander
is a third-generation Savoyard, who studies and sings Gilbert & Sullivan
as if to the manner born, for indeed he was! He also shares another hobby with
his father: he enjoys performing as a magician. He leaves, however, the collecting
of Howdy Doody memorabilia to his dad.
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| April
2010 |
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