The Black Mikado

• Original London Production (1975)
  London, England

Click on the title for info on the song.

Original score

• If You Want to Know Who We Are
• A Wandering Minstrel I
• Our Great Mikado, Virtuous Man
• Young Man, Despair, Likewise Go To
• And Have I Journeyed for a Month
• Behold the Lord High Executioner
• As Some Day It May Happen
• Comes a Train of Little Ladies
• Three Little Maids from School Are We
• So Please You, Sir, We Much Regret
• Were You Not to Ko-Ko Plighted
• I Am So Proud
• Braid the Raven Hair
• The Sun, Whose Rays Are All Ablaze
• Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day
• Here's a How-De-Do! If I Marry You
• Miya Sama
• A More Humane Mikado
• Criminal Cried, The
• See How the Fates Their Gifts Allot
• The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring
• Alone, and Yet Alive
• On a Tree by a River
• There Is Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast

From an idea by Patrick Ide and James Verner

In a comic world where rigid laws demand executions for minor offenses, Ko-Ko is promoted from condemned prisoner to Lord High Executioner, while Nanki-Poo, disguised as a wandering minstrel, pursues his love for Yum-Yum, who is engaged to Ko-Ko. Their schemes to avoid death and navigate the Mikado’s absurd decrees unfold in a swirl of satire and mistaken identities. With an all-Black company and a score infused with jazz, calypso, and soul, the production recast the Victorian satire with vibrant new rhythms and energy, highlighting both romance and political comedy.

The adapters are part of the band Juice, which also served as the pit band for the London production.