Patience auditions

Patience 7th – 10th May 2025

Open Night

Wed 11th December, 7:30 pm
Christ Church, Stantonbury
MK14 6BN

This open night is a fantastic opportunity to discover the melodies and humour of this marvellous show. Come along, meet fellow singers and share the excitement of a brand new production.
We welcome singers of all levels to come and be part of this enchanting evening.

The Chorus

There are no auditions required for chorus members, just a firm commitment to attend rehearsals. Everyone is welcome!

Patience has some of the best chorus music in the G&S canon, with probably the best double chorus (‘In a Doleful Train’) and a brilliant Act 1 finale, which is almost a mini-opera in itself. The ladies’ chorus are the ‘Lovesick Maidens’ who are obsessed with the poet Bunthorne and, later, Grosvenor. The men’s chorus are the Officers of the Dragoon Guards, who were all engaged to the ladies a year ago.

The Auditions

Auditions for the principal roles will be held from 7:30 pm on Wednesday 18th December at West End United Church, Wolverton MK12 5JZ.

There’s another chance to audition from 7:30 pm on Friday 20th December if you can’t make the 18th.

We also accept video auditions so you still have a chance even if you are a Christmas Elf or otherwise working hard in mid-December. Send your video to us by midnight on 17th December.

Sing through with Dave

Our Musical director Dave Anstice-Pim will gently lead you through the audition music in a happy sing-along with the group.

Everyone is welcome to come along, have a sing and join in the choruses on Friday 13th December at 8:00 pm. This is not an audition. It’s a taster session.

All members of Wolverton G&S are invited to this sing through to enthusiastically support the auditionees and to sing in the odd bits of chorus where needed.

You may decide to have a go for a part yourself once you have heard the sing through. We’ll take applications right up until the audition night itself.

Who can audition?

You must be a registered member to audition. Our subs are currently £180 per year or £90 per half year. Monthly payments are £15 per month.
There’s nothing to pay for the first month for new members. Complete the audition form to register now or fill one in at rehearsal.

Show dates

Theatre Get-In and Band Call – Sunday 4^th May 2025 (all day) – ALL PERFORMERS REQUIRED

Tech Rehearsal – Monday 5^th May 2025 (7.30pm)

Dress Rehearsal – Tuesday 6^th May 2025 (7.30pm)

Performances – Wednesday 7^th – Saturday 10^th May 2025 (all performances start at 7.30pm)

Venue: Stantonbury Theatre, Stantonbury, Milton Keynes MK14 6BN

Scores and libs

Scores – The society has a few copies of the Chappell’s score if you want to borrow one.

If you want to get your own score, we recommend that you use either the Chappell’s edition of the vocal score, available to buy here, or the G&S Archive edition, which also includes dialogue and can be downloaded here. Page numbers for both are given below.

Libretto – page numbers below are for the Chappell’s edition of the libretto, available to buy here. As mentioned above, the G&S Archive edition of the vocal score also has the dialogue in, and there is also a plain libretto on the G&S Archive here.

The Principal Parts

Click on a character name for more details.

Colonel Calverly (Officer of Dragoon Guards)

Bass-baritone with singing range G2-F4

Major Murgatroyd (Officer of Dragoon Guards)

Baritone with singing range D3-Eb4 (F4)

Lieut. The Duke of Dunstable (Officer of Dragoon Guards)

Tenor with singing range D3-A4 (opt.C#5)

Reginald Bunthorne (a fleshly poet)

Comic-baritone with singing range Bb2-E4 (opt.G4)

Archibald Grosvenor (an idyllic poet)

Lyric baritone with singing range D3-F4 (opt.G4)

Lady Angela (rapturous maiden)

Mezzo with singing range B3 (opt.A3)-E5

Lady Saphir (rapturous maiden)

Soprano with singing range D4 (opt.C#4) -F5

Lady Ella (rapturous maiden)

Soprano with singing range E4-G5

Lady Jane (rapturous maiden)

Contralto with singing range G3-E5 (opt.F#5)

Patience (a dairy maid)

Soprano with singing range C4-A5 (opt.D6)

Bunthorne’s Solicitor

Non-singing, non-speaking cameo role in the Act 1 Finale – no audition. Expressions of interest please.

Laura and Dave’s notes on Patience

Patience

First performed at the old Opera Comique theatre on Aldwych in London, Patience is notable for becoming the first show performed at the Savoy Theatre when it moved there in October 1881, thus also becoming the first theatrical production in the world entirely lit by electricity. Their sixth operatic collaboration, Patience is Gilbert and Sullivan’s satire on the aesthetic movement of the 1870s-1880s and pokes fun at fads, superficiality, vanity and hypocrisy.

The aesthetic movement, known as “art for art’s sake”, prioritised beauty over practical concerns which was, by many, considered self-indulgent. The two poets in Patience, Bunthorne and Grosvenor, are frequently likened to Oscar Wilde – in fact, G&S’s proprietor Richard D’Oyly Carte was also Wilde’s manager and sent him on a year-long US lecture tour to help popularise the touring production of Patience in America. The show is one of G&S’s most popular, especially with performers, and has a lot of funny dialogue and rousing music.

Our Production

The aesthetic setting is topical for the time of writing in the 1880s, which risks making Patience less accessible to modern audiences. The temptation to update the piece to make it more relevant is high but a traditionally set production, with reverence to the original text and intention, is just as enjoyable for a modern audience as the themes are universal: celebrity culture, vanity and, ultimately, love! As such, this production will have a ‘traditional’ setting. However, by working with the text and interpreting it faithfully, we will keep the characters and the story fresh.

Synopsis

Act 1 opens on a chorus of ‘twenty lovesick maidens’ (actual number in female chorus not important) singing of their unrequited love for Reginald Bunthorne, an aesthetic poet, who only has eyes for Patience, the village milkmaid. Patience herself cannot understand the ladies’ love for this poet, or even what love is. She does, however, have news – the 35^th Dragoon Guards have arrived back in the village. Despite previous engagements to them, the ladies are unimpressed and leave to find Bunthorne.

The Dragoons enter to great pomp and circumstance before Bunthorne arrives, flanked by the rapturous maidens. He recites one of his own (practically nonsense) poems before sweeping off, leaving the Dragoons befuddled.

When alone, Bunthorne reveals that his aestheticism is a sham to make him popular with the ladies. He admits this privately to Patience who, despite this, tells him that she could never fall in love with him. Patience then admits to one of the ladies that she had a babyhood sweetheart.

Having determined to fall in love at once, Patience bumps into a stranger who proposes to her instantly. She declines, but discovers that this man is in fact her babyhood sweetheart, Archibald Grosvenor, also an aesthetic poet (although a more authentic one). They admit their love for each other but agree they cannot wed, because he is perfection and Patience cannot monopolise his attentions. Distraught at his rejection, Bunthorne returns to raffle himself off to one of the maidens. Patience enters and offers herself to him in what she considers to be an unselfish act. When Grosvenor arrives and all the ladies switch their attention to him, Bunthorne, Patience, the Dragoons (and Grosvenor himself) are all horrified.

In Act 2 the maidens all follow Grosvenor around until he begs them for some privacy. He and Patience share a moment before she is accosted by Bunthorne (followed by Lady Jane, the only one who remained faithful to him).

After discovering Patience only really loves Grosvenor, Bunthorne determines to knock him off his perch.

Desperate to win back the favour of the ladies, three Dragoons experiment with aestheticism, which does the trick! They allow their lowest ranked officer (who also happens to be a Duke) to take first pick.

Meanwhile, Bunthorne and Grosvenor square off and Grosvenor gladly agrees to ditch his ‘perfect’ persona so he might live a normal life. The girls, however, continue to follow him rather than Bunthorne, as whatever he does must be right.

Patience now sees that there can be nothing unselfish in loving him now, leaving Bunthorne with only Lady Jane to be with. The Dragoons enter and, in the interest of fairness, the Duke selects the plainest of the maidens to wed, which happens to be… Jane! She rushes to him leaving ‘nobody to be Bunthorne’s bride’.