IN Series Opens Season With Political Operetta Reimagining Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado

IN Series launches its 2026-2027 season with "The M.A.K.A.do: Make America Kingly Again!," a contemporary adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's classic operetta set in the Oval Office. The production is part of the season's broader theme exploring how music and theater can expose tyranny and speak truth to power across nearly a thousand years of artistic history. The company positions itself as a smaller nonprofit willing to take artistic risks and address both historical and contemporary issues through performance.

IN Series' 2026-2027 season theme, "Sic Semper Tyrannis," examines how performance art across nearly a millennium has functioned as a tool for exposing authoritarianism and power abuses. The company frames this programming strategy as befitting a smaller nonprofit institution with fewer institutional constraints, positioning artistic risk-taking around contemporary and historical political content as both a privilege and ethical responsibility for organizations with "less to lose" than larger cultural institutions.

The Mikado itself represents a watershed moment in theatrical history. Premiering in 1885, the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta became a phenomenon of unprecedented scale—approximately 150 productions worldwide emerged within nine months of its London opening. The original work ran 672 performances, establishing a popularity that sustained through the subsequent century via the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's continuous operation until 1981.