Frederic has fallen in love with sweet innocent Mabel. Yet his vocation is an impediment to their union. Perhaps the situation can be rectified by his old nurse, Ruth, who was hard of hearing, made a dreadful blunder years before. Fredric was meant to be an apprentice to a pilot, but Ruth mistakes her master's wish. Instead of being apprenticed to a pilot, he was apprenticed to a pirate, but not just any pirate--the Pirate King, leader of the not-so-fierce "Pirates of Penzance." After many years, Frederic discovers the truth. He is ready to leave the Pirates of Penzance when Ruth pleads for him to take her with him. He agrees, but shortly afterward, he meets the daughters of the Major-General and falls madly in love with them, so he rejects Ruth. But unfortunately, his sense of duty as a pirate is stuck in the middle.
Wacky, irreverent, and as entertaining today as it was when it first opened in 1879, The Pirates of Penzance spins a hilarious farce of sentimental pirates, bumbling policemen, dim-witted young lovers, dewy-eyed daughters, and an eccentric Major-General, all morally bound to the often ridiculous dictates of honor and duty.