Gilbert and Sullivan Society
Music Production in Cape Town

The Cape Town Gilbert and Sullivan Society, founded in 1947, serves the community theatre of Cape Town by staging Gilbert and Sullivan operas and West End Broadway musicals to critical acclaim, both in Cape Town and overseas.
Visit our website for the latest news on our shows and productions.
Some of the shows we have staged include Fiddler on The Roof, Annie, Yeomen of the Guard, The King and I and many more.

The singing was of the highest standard and the chorus as well-schooled, as one would expect from this renowned and experienced society: it was established 68 years ago. How good to hear him still in good voice and with an innate sense of comedy. That this operetta, first staged in 1880, is still winning hearts speaks clearly of the magic of Gilbert and Sullivan. As the audience filed out into a fine evening, there was a lightness of step and happy spark, which spoke volumes of the fun and utter enjoyment of the evening. A year before the action of this opera begins, Nanki-Poo, son of the Mikado of Japan, fled his father's imperial court to escape marriage with Katisha, an elderly lady. Disguised as a traveling musician, he met and fell in love with Yum-Yum, the young ward of Ko-Ko, a cheap tailor in the town of Titipu. Colonel Fairfax, a gentleman, soldier and scientist, who has been sentenced to be beheaded in an hour on a false charge of sorcery. To avoid leaving his estate to his accuser (a cousin), and with the help of the Lieutenant of the Tower, Fairfax secretly marries Elsie Maynard, a strolling singer. The bride agrees to be blindfolded during the ceremony and expects to be a well-paid widow in an hour. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. Pinafore was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth operatic collaboration and their first international sensation. The Gondoliers; or, The King of Barataria is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert.