In a year of new beginnings for both the University of Iowa School of Music and Hancher Auditorium, one of the more ambitious collaborations between the two will highlight what makes each special.

The Pirates of Penzance, presented by the School of Music and featuring student performers and student musicians in the UI Symphony Orchestra, will grace the Hancher stage for a pair of performances Friday and Sunday. The beloved operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan was hand-picked as the first UI Opera Theatre production to open at the new Hancher, providing a family-friendly, accessible opera experience for the audience.

“We really wanted something that everybody could come to,” says Bill Theisen, associate professor and director of opera. “A kid would enjoy it; a senior citizen would enjoy it. It’s an important thing for the opera program to expose people to the world of operetta and the world of Gilbert and Sullivan, which is a really great way to get your feet wet.”

In addition to picking a production geared toward a broad audience, Theisen also saw Pirates as a way to challenge his students. An operetta requires learning both dialog and a lot of movement to go along with the singing. In this particular production, comedic timing and acting is important as well.

“I have done a lot of works of Gilbert and Sullivan and I love it,” Theisen says. “I think it’s such a unique style that is really important for the students to be aware of. This is different from an opera from a musical perspective, and it requires a skillset that the students really ought to have.”

Jeff Rickerl, a vocal performance major who will be playing the Pirate King, has been relishing the challenge.

“Bill always has a lot of movement in his productions, but this is a lot more than what is normally done,” says the Clinton, Iowa, native. “I feel like I’m always jumping on a table or a rock, trying to get up on top of things.”

In addition to tackling the challenge of an operetta, the students acquire professional experience during rehearsals and the culminating performances at Hancher.

Theisen’s background in directing professional operas plays a central role in how he educates students.

“I can definitely make it an educational environment, but I also treat my students as professionals so that when they do go out into the world, they have a sense of how a professional rehearsal is run and what a professional rehearsal period entails,” Theisen says.

Despite the fast pace, Theisen always makes sure to spend time working directly with his students, even if it is outside of rehearsal. In a production as unique as Pirates, every student will face different challenges.

For Gyehyun Jung, a doctoral student in voice performance and pedagogy from Seoul, South Korea, her spoken—not sung—lines were particularly difficult.

“Spoken dialogue, even speaking it with a certain accent, was the most challenging part to me as a non-native English speaker,” says Jung, who earned a starring role as Mabel. “With a lot of help from an opera coach, our stage director, and my teacher, now I get to enjoy it.”

Now that the new Hancher and new Voxman Music Building are open, the opera department has more tools and better facilities at its disposal for not only teaching opera, but bringing it to a larger audience. Theisen says Hancher is the biggest stage that UI Opera Theatre has performed on.

Ben Ross, a voice performance and music education major who will play Major General Stanley, looks forward to being on the Hancher stage himself after attending other events as an audience member.

“It really is one of the most advanced, top-quality theaters in the country right now,” says Ross, a native of Rockford, Illinois. “Knowing I’m going to be able to perform on that stage with the excellent support from the technical side is really exciting.”

Aside from the facilities, many other UI entities are enhancing the experience for both the performers and the audience.

“It’s an entirely student orchestra, with Dr. William LaRue Jones conducting, and they bring a lot to the process,” Theisen says. “The sets were created here in the scene shop in Hancher. The costumes, some are rentals but some are built right here in the costume shop. A lot of UI people were involved in this production.”

Chuck Swanson, executive director of Hancher, says this kind of student experience was a big part of the design process for the new facility. The opportunity to show students what life is like as a professional performer is one Swanson is glad Hancher can provide.

“It’s not only on that stage,” Swanson says. “It’s backstage, in the dressing rooms, and even entering from the stage door. That whole experience is really important to their education and what they’re striving for. It gives them all of the same experiences that (famed opera singer) Renée Fleming has, or that the touring Broadway shows have.”

For performers like Ross, The Pirates of Penzance is another milestone in a long line of new experiences he’s had at the UI.

“Being involved with opera exposed me to an entirely new art form that I wasn’t really thinking about and had never been exposed to,” he says. “As I’ve started to become more involved with it, it’s nice to consider what it would be like if I were to actually pursue this as a career.”