The Washington Savoyards

Washington Savoyards was a professional musical theatre company based in Washington, DC. Founded in 1972, the company annually produced three fully staged musicals and operettas, usually including at least one Gilbert and Sullivan production each year. It performed at the Duke Ellington School and the Atlas Performing Arts Center. The company suspended performances in 2012.

The company was formed in 1972 as the Montgomery Savoyards but changed its name in 1981, since its performers, musicians and patrons are drawn from all over the Washington, DC metropolitan area. For its first three decades, the company performed primarily the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. It began performing in church halls and a high school. In 1982, it moved to the Trinity Theatre in Georgetown, Washington. In 1987, it transferred to the Duke Ellington Theatre at the Duke Ellington School for the Arts, also in Georgetown, which served as its home for ten years.

By 2003, the company decided to expand its repertoire beyond the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, to produce at least three shows a year, and to find a new theatre. The first non-Gilbert and Sullivan piece produced by the company was Jacques Offenbach's La Périchole, during the 2004–2005 season. The following season was the first with three productions, and most seasons since then have had at least three productions. The Company cast the first of many members of Actors Equity in 2006. In late 2006, the company moved to its new home, the Atlas Performing Arts Center in Northeast Washington. The company has also performed at the H Street Festival, Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, and at the Arts Club of Washington, among other venues.

Washington Savoyards attracts its singers from among opera and theatre professionals based in the Washington area, as well as from music, theatre, and opera students at local universities. In 2004, the company was accepted into residency at Flashpoint, Washington's arts incubator run by the Cultural Development Corporation of Washington. The company's artistic director, since 2007, is N. Thomas Pedersen. Audrey M. Shipp directed all of the Savoyards' productions from 1973 until 1995. In recent years, its directors have included Michael Baron, Michael J. Bobbitt, and Jay D. Brock.

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