THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

Kate Sullivan as Lady Puttifar in The Young Recruit

Kate Sullivan (1878-79)

[Born Chelsea 1855, died 28 Jul 1912]

Catherine Frances "Kate" Sullivan was the daughter of John Sullivan, an uncle of Sir Arthur Sullivan, and was, accordingly, Arthur Sullivan's first cousin. She was a chorister with a touring Comedy Opera Company Ltd., playing Trial by Jury and The Sorcerer under D'Oyly Carte management, from March to August 1878. It seems likely she remained in the chorus when the Company took up H.M.S. Pinafore in September 1878, though hard evidence is missing. We do know that following the fracture between Carte, Gilbert, and her cousin on one side, and the directors of the Comedy Opera Company on the other, at the end of July 1879, Miss Sullivan amazingly cast her lot with the directors.

The rival Pinafore ran for 91 performances at the Imperial and Royal Olympic Theatres, ultimately closing in October for lack of public support. Miss Sullivan was one of five singers to appear as Josephine in that production. She was also the second of three Marias in the curtain raiser After All, and played Jenny Wood in the afterpiece Breaking the Spell.

Kate Sullivan's subsequent stage career as comedy, burlesque, and music hall star in the 1880s and early 1890s is documented in detail by Anne Stanyon in her paper "From Laundry to Burlesque: the career of Kate Sullivan, 1875-1893" (academia.edu). Among her more successful roles were Scintilla, the Fairy Queen, in the 1883 Drury Lane pantomime Cinderella and the fearsome Lady Puttifar in the 1892 burlesque operetta The Young Recruit. At the time of her death in 1912 Kate Sullivan was described in The Era Almanack simply as a "retired burlesque artist."

Two of her sisters, Rose Hervey and Jane Hervey (stage names), also appeared with the D'Oyly Carte organization. There is an excellent article on the three of them--"Three Little Maids is the Total Sum" by Selwyn Tillett, in Sir Arthur Sullivan Society Magazine, No. 33, Autumn 1991.

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