Published: August 14, 2008 08:23 pm         

"The Pirates of Penzance" concludes at Playhouse Aug. 31

The final weeks have begun for Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance at Cumberland County Playhouse, through Aug. 31. The Pirates of Penzance, one of the most beloved shows in musical theater history, is sponsored by Mariner’s Pointe Resort and Tennessee Heart of Cookeville. Pirates features Nathaniel Hackmann, a CCP audience favorite as “Big Jack” in Lawnchair Man, sponsored by Crossville, Inc., and the Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, sponsored by Looney & Chadwell Title Services and Kenneth and Carol Ann Chadwell, as the swashbuckling Pirate King. Playhouse leading lady Nicole Begue co-directs with Michele Colvin, and plays the ravishing Mabel, lovely but not the brightest bulb in the Major General’s chandelier of daughters. Featured film/ TV actor Steven Michael Ayers (McMurphy in CCP’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), returns as the “modern major general.”

Playhouse chief scenic artist John Fionte has fashioned a beautiful environment for the show, which is set in the “wilds” of the English county of Cornwall, on the far western coast, with pirate duds (and maidenly underwear!) by Renee Luttrell. Though the notion of pirates in 19th century England is deliberately foolish, the Pirate King and band leap into the fray, even dropping from the ceiling in acrobatics organized by Keith Arnott and Mike Deck of the Cumberland County Rescue Squad.

Co-director/star Nicole Begue toured nationally in the role of Mabel, was featured as Yum Yum in The Mikado at Knoxville Opera, in last season’s CCP Mikado, and in leads with Clarence Brown Theater and Cleveland Lyric Opera. An MM grad from UT Knoxville, she is a Ph.D. candidate at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, voice teacher at the Playhouse, and director of education.

Baritone Hackmann recently completed the Merola Young Artists program at San Francisco Opera, and will be seen at CCP as Emile DeBecque (“Some Enchanted Evening”) in R&H’s South Pacific, sponsored by Comfort Suites, Holiday Inn Express and Hampton Inn. Tenor Paul Saylor, from the prestigious Catawba College in North Carolina performance program, makes his CCP debut as the young hero, Frederic.

Major General Ayers, a veteran of film and TV appearances with major stars, is amid a Playhouse residency, performing and observing the theater’s programs for pre-college, university, and post-graduate students. For two decades he has been Professsor of Stage and Screen at Western Carolina University. Co-director/choreographer Michele Colvin, who staged CCP’s Beauty and the Beast, also directs the upcoming White Christmas, sponsored by M. Stewart Galloway, MD and Cumberland Eye Care.  

Also in rotating rep at CCP are First Baptist of Ivy Gap, sponsored by Crossville Ford-Lincoln-Mercury; Smoke on the Mountain, sponsored by Cracker Barrel Old Country Store; and Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming, sponsored by First National Bank of Tennessee. Tickets can be purchased from the Box Office at (931) 484-5000. Visit the Playhouse at www.ccplayhouse.com to view the schedule and information.