Washington Savoyards

The Washington Savoyards is the light opera company of Washington. It performs comic and light opera, operetta, and musical theatre. Remembering its roots as a Gilbert and Sullivan company, it mounts at least one of their popular light operas each season.

Focusing on opera and theatre professionals resident in the metropolitan area, the Company provides employment, training, performance experience, and artistic support to its performers and crew members. The Washington Savoyards embodies laughter and the human spirit, superb local artists, and community development. It hires solely according to ability without regard for ethnicity or age. Its goal is to have its casts and audiences look like the neighborhood in which it performs and the metropolitan area in which it lives. Washington Savoyards casts have included Equity actors. The Company has a sense of humor and gives its audiences musical and physical dexterity. Its pit has a full live orchestra. A Washington Savoyards production utilizes every aspect of the performing arts. The Company draws on the magnificent pool of Washingtons talented performing artists for whom it provides a stage for their talents and additions to their resumes.

The Washington Savoyards performs at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, in the heart of the emerging H Street Corridor (the New York Times calls it H [as in humming] Street. Its casts, crews, and audiences directly support the economic development of the Atlas District and its restaurants and businesses, bringing as many as10,000 people into the Atlas District each season.

Sandy Bainum received a Helen Hayes Award Nomination for her role as Marian Paroo in THE MUSIC MAN (2009). Other recent productions include KISS ME, KATE (2007), THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE (2008), and Scott Joplin's TREEMONISHA (2010).

less