4/Arts Productions Inc.

Gee ‘n Ess & “I” is the idea of George Jarden, of Las Cruces, NM, a physician/musician who “grew up with” Gilbert and Sullivan in his home in Rose Valley, PA, during the 1940s and 1950s.  His parents were leaders in one of the hundreds of G&S societies active in the U.S. and world wide in the teens of the 20th Century, continuing to the present day. 

Jarden wrote the original script, edited the G&S score, supervised the computer generated music (CGM) creation, sang the recorded vocals, and acted the videos. 

Jarden plays the one-man show as “I” – who performs live on-stage as himself and in G&S roles, and is also seen on two large VIDEO projection screens in pre-videoed acting and singing vignettes – some 70 characters in all.   The VIDEO “I”- characters interact with each other, and with “I” /Jarden on-stage live.

The show loosely ties together Jarden’s pick of elements from eleven of the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas of the late 19th Century.  (All but “Thespis” (whose score is lost) and “The Grand Duke,” and “Utopia, Limited,” are represented.)  “I”/ Jarden wove together portions of some 65 songs with complementing vignettes, and voice/over and monologue links and segues, to capture “What appealed to me in stream-of-conscious reflection on G&S,” he says.  All told – “including one-liners” – some 65 songs are represented, played and sung by “I”  - either live, or in video, or  as pre-recorded sound track.

Three years of audio studio recording by “I”/Jarden and Dave Wheeler (see below) resulted in creation of the various pre-recorded choruses and solos with which the live “I” interacts; and, the video shooting was completed over a half-year during 2009.  

For more on the creative process, see Creative Team Members, below.

For George Jarden’s reflections on Gilbert and Sullivan and Gee 'n Ess & “I”, see "I"/George's Insights.

Noted artist Flo Hosa Dougherty (www.artgally.com/bluegate, bluegateflodoc@aol.com) has created some 100 paintings/cartoons for the VIDEO, which complement the live on-stage action of Gee 'n Ess & “I”.  As the show unfolds, her creations lend whimsy, insight, and clarification.  Her fetching and vibrant and illuminating characterizations provide a refreshing take on the “what is it” of G&S and, more importantly, of Gee 'n Ess & “I” !  They augment the stage and VIDEO action with instant insight for the previously G&S-naïve, while injecting a refreshing “look” – to the sheer delight of confirmed Savoyards!

"It is with fond nostalgia that I find myself creating art work for Gee 'n Ess & I.  The first live play I saw was  Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore many decades ago.  I stood
during the whole performance because, when seated, I couldn't see over the chair in front of me.

Now it's "home again" with a familiarity of these eleven operas.  Singing nor acting is my thing but I felt the part of each role in the illustrations that came off my drawing board.

Modified cartouches or title cards include semblances of each particular opera. Personalities and masks are represented as characterizations, some comedic and 
others as caricatures of George Jarden.
 
Presently I exhibit works in my Blue Gate Fine Art Gallery.  Having fostered art in young people and communities during my long teaching career, I still have a penchant for doing so today. "

Dave, former Programming Coordinator and Rio Grande Theatre Manager with the The Doña Ana Arts Council, is a life-long Las Cruces thespian talent, with scores of acting and directing credits. He is Director of Gee ‘n Ess & “I”.

He and George Jarden have worked on script editing and blocking for three years, and the path to lighting and final stage presentation is getting shorter!

Brandi has designed dance and movement choreography for Gee ‘n Ess & “I” which defines the essence of the whimsy, and the “commentary,” and the “attitude” of Gilbert and Sullivan, while contributing her own sense of the dramatic to “I” / Jarden’s vision of “where he wants the show to go”… to make G&S approachable and fun for the “un-initiated,” while adding a freshness for die-hard Savoyards (while eschewing camp-ness or the universally ill-advised attempts at “spoofing the spoof”).

While a student at New Mexico State University, in the Winter of 2006/2007, Jason and “I”/ Jarden spent untold hours on this project. Before Jarden “found” Stewart, there seemed to be no way to accompany Gee 'n Ess & “I”. Jarden had lifted from the original Gilbert & Sullivan scores the music he had chosen from 11 operas, and edited them to suit the show. (Songs were:  shortened, truncated, segued to their act-to-act reprises, and so forth, so that their very structure was changed. Then, tempos were modified, keys were changed, dynamics changed.) The goal was to make them more fitting to the flow of the show, but just as recognizable as in the original, and, in fact, even more accessible to an audience of non-Savoyards as well as G&S fans. But, to make music of this patch-work score? Either to be recorded, or played live for the show! No approach seemed workable. No keyboardest could play from such edited music, and re-writing the scores for musicians would have required resources unimaginable in money and personnel. The solution? Jarden gave Jason Stewart his chopped-up scores, Jason entered them (note by note!) into his computer, then, they both sat at the table for hours on end (sometimes over five hours a song) and refined and refined and refined the 60-some songs in the show. There is one song with 35 tempo changes, sometimes three in one measure! Jason’s work on Gee 'n Ess & “I” has been finished for over two years now, while the score is being incorporated into the live accompaniment and the Video.  Jarden says, “He was the right man at the right time with the right talent!”