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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
 
 
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.
April 2010
 
The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin
PO Box 684542 / Austin, Texas / 78768-4542 / 512.472.4772 / info@gilbertsullivan.org