Far Off Destination Brought to Life on Stage
In the past, attendants of CMU Opera Workshop productions have been transported to the streets of New York to witness a gang war in West Side Story and have visited many other places through various performances. This year, they were transported to Japan for the CMU student production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado: The Town of Titipu, performed March 3-6 in CMU’s Laudamus Auditorium.
The Mikado is a comic-opera about a minstrel, Nanki-Poo, who had banished himself from the town of Titipu because of his love for the already engaged maiden, Yum-Yum. Nanki-Poo returns when he learns that Yum-Yum’s fiance has been sentenced to death for the capital crime of flirting, and hilarity ensues upon his return.
According to David Klassen, the producer and director of the production, the process of transforming CMU into a Japanese courtyard and the students of Opera Workshop into executioners, maidens, elderly women, and leaders of towns involves a great deal of research.
Says Becky Hill, who played Pitti-Sing, “It’s been a really fun process to learn all that and then putting it all together with the make-up and the hair and the wardrobe – you suddenly feel as if you are the character,” she said.
For Nathan Thorpe, a CMU student and an audience member at The Mikado for one of the performances, it was difficult to remember that some of the cast members were his friends, not actually executioners and leaders of Asian towns.
“I caught myself thinking, ‘Wow, these actors are really good! Oh, wait… These are people I know,’” he said.
Though the process of transforming CMU into a Japanese town and its students into elaborately dressed Japanese characters was difficult, it was worth it, Klassen said.
“It’s quick and it’s a lot of hard work for everyone involved, but at the end of the day, when you have a production like this that the students can be equally as proud as I am, it’s highly gratifying,” he said.
Article by Rachel Bergen, CMU Communications & Media Student
Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) is a Christian university offering undergraduate degrees in the arts and sciences, business, communications and media, peace and conflict resolution studies, music, music therapy, theology, and church ministries, as well as graduate degrees in Theological Studies and Christian ministry. Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CMU has over 1,700 students at its Shaftesbury Campus in Southwest Winnipeg, at Menno Simons College in downtown Winnipeg, and enrolled through its Outtatown discipleship program. CMU is a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC).
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