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Show I OPERA PRODUCTION DATE DRAWS NEAR The colorful and entertaining comic opera "The Pirates of Penzance1' Pen-zance1' will be presented March 6, 1942, in the high school auditorium audi-torium at 8 p. m., by the Preston High Music department. The production pro-duction will be completely costumed cos-tumed and will consist of a cast of sixty members plus the high school orchestra with Beth Smith as con-certmaster.. con-certmaster.. The entire group is working hard and putting forth its best effort ef-fort to make the "Pirates of Penzance" Pen-zance" an outstanding production. The leading characters are; Major General Stanley, William K. Hurd; The Pirate King, Blaine Wilson; Samuel,- Fred Bingham; Frederic, Richard Merrill; Sergeant of Police, Dan Campbell ; Mabel, Edith Baugh; Edith, Nelda Spack-man; Spack-man; Kate, Joyce Swainston; Isabel, Isa-bel, Blanche Wilson; Ruth, Coy Christensen, with the chorus of pirates, police and General Stanley's Stan-ley's wards. practiced upon them, and they seize and bind the Major-General. But the police come to the rescue res-cue and charge the pirates to yield, "in Queen Victoria's name." This they do. Ruth explains, however, that these men who appear to be lawless pirates are really all "noblemen "no-blemen who have .gone wrong," and they 'are pardoned and permitted to marry the Major-General's wards. Story: When Frederic was yet a litlle boy, his nurse (Ruth) was told to apprentice him to a pilot. She heard the word incorrectly and apprenticed ap-prenticed him to a band of pirates, remaining with them herself as a maid-of-all-work. Although Frederic Fred-eric loathed the trade to which he had thus been bound, he dutifully served; and, as the curiam rises, his indentures are almost up and he is preparing to leave the hand and devote himself the extermination extermina-tion of piracy. He urges the priates to join him in embracing a more lawful calling, but they refuse. Ruth, however, wishes to become his wife. Having Hav-ing seen but few women he does not know whether she is really as pretty as she says she is; but he finally consents to take her. Just then a, group of girls, all I the wards of Major-General Stanley, Stan-ley, happen upon the scene. Frederic Fred-eric sees their beauty and Ruth's plainness and renounces ner. Of these girls, Mabel takes a particular particu-lar interest in Frederic, and he in her. The other girls are seized by the pirates and threatened with immediate marriage. When the Major-General arrives he can dissuade dis-suade the pirates only by a ruse; he tells them that lie is an orphan, and so works upon their sympathies sympa-thies that they let him and his wards go free. This lie troubles the Major-General's .conscience; he sits brooding over it at night in a Gothic ruin. Meanwhile the Pirate King and Ruth appear at the window and beckon Frederic; they have discov. ered his indentures were to run until his twenty-first birthday, and as he was born on February 29 he has really, had as yet only five birthdays. Obeying the dictates of strong sense of duty, he immediately immedi-ately rejoins the pirates. He tells them of deception that has been |