RECITATIVE -- LORD CHANCELLOR

All of these people should be in a cage!
They're so insane, that they like nothing better
Than spending hours practicing to stage
A Gilbert & Sullivan Operetta!

SONG -- LORD CHANCELLOR

Iolanthe's a show
(As perhaps you may know)
With an overabundant proportion
Of Gilbertian wit,
And, indeed, quite a bit
Of his pronunciation distortion.

And there are, on my word,
Situations absurd!
Now can you conceive anything queerer
Than the thought of a beau-
Tiful young lady who
Never looked at herself in a mirror?

If love's undermining
The Chanc'lor, who's pining
For Phyllis 'til he's nearly prostrate,
Well, why are the Peers
(Who have known him for years)
So amazed when he says that he's lost weight?

And isn't it rough on
That poor fellow Strephon,
Who grew up with only a mother?
It seems there aren't an-
Y full-blood fairy men
In the troupe, for some reason or other!

But no matter what show
You put on, we all know
That some challenges are universal.
And the trick is for you
Somehow just to get through,
One by one, every evening's rehearsal!

For you wake in the night
In a terrible fright
That your lines you will never remember,
And you think that you might
Never get them all right,
Even if you rehearse 'til December!

Your significant other
You try not to bother,
'Cause giving you cues can be boring,
And deep down you know
When they come see the show,
They'll be out in the audience, snoring.

You may practice the rhymes
Any number of times
To connect your cerebral synapses,
But take it from me,
There is no guarantee
That you won't have some memory lapses!

For though you may know
You have three months to go
When auditions are finally done with,
And they gave you a part
That is dear to your heart,
And it's something you're going to have fun with,

And you've read the script through,
And you think maybe you
Can procrastinate some, if you want to,
Well, those three months go by
In the blink of an eye,
And you wonder "Where has the time gone to?"

For the dialog's rough,
And it's challenge enough
('Til the wee hours it keeps you up nightly),
But the songs can be worse
When the notes in each verse
May be different, but only just slightly!

And to learn every song
Can take painfully long
If the folks on each side are tone-deaf ones.
And the choreography
Comes out rather daffy
When both of your feet feel like left ones!

The Director sits out
In the back and will shout
At us nastily if he can't hear us.
And we don't (though we should)
Tell him really, he could,
If he'd only move right up here near us!

The Conductor keeps banging
Her baton and hanging
Her head in despair over wrong notes,
With a frequent oration
On music notation,
To help us tell short notes from long notes.

And it's hard to keep track:
Is "upstage" front or back?
There are some who are never quite certain.
When you're almost past hope,
All at once it is op-
Ening night, and up rises the curtain!

You're at once in a panic,
Depressive and manic;
You moan in despair --
There are people out there!
It's a frightening sight,
And the lights are too bright,
And you try to be brave,
But your tongue won't behave,
And your make-up gets smeared,
And your costume looks weird,
And your larynx, of course,
Has gone suddenly hoarse,
And the frog in your throat
Means you can't find your note,

And you're feeling completely defeated!

But you hear something odd:
It's out there -- they applaud!

ENSEMBLE JOINS IN UNISON
So we thank you, dear friends,
As our opera ends.

BREAKING INTO FULL HARMONY
We hope you had as much fun as we did!