Jane Annie

Jane Annie, or The Good Conduct Prize is a comic opera written in 1893 by J. M. Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle, with music by Ernest Ford, a conductor and occasional composer.

When the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership disbanded after the production of The Gondoliers in 1889, impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte was forced to find new works to present at the Savoy Theatre. Barrie was then a journalist and a novelist with a few popular books to his credit. He had not yet created his classic Peter Pan, and his only stage productions included a biography that closed after one night, a parody of new-to-London Henrik Ibsen, and in 1892 his first real success, Walker, London for Toole's Theatre.

Barrie brought his idea for Jane Annie to D'Oyly Carte, who suggested that Arthur Sullivan collaborate with him, but Sullivan suggested his former pupil Ford, instead. Ford had composed several operettas, including the one-act Mr. Jericho (premiered at the Savoy in 1893). Barrie could not finish the libretto. He persuaded his friend Conan Doyle – already popular for his Sherlock Holmes mysteries – to work on it. Conan Doyle finished the piece but was constrained by Barrie's work.

Jane Annie premiered at the Savoy Theatre, London, on 13 May 1893 and was an immediate failure there. Barrie and Conan Doyle made revisions, but the piece closed after a run of only 50 performances, despite a strong cast that included such Savoy favourites as Rutland Barrington, Walter Passmore, Rosina Brandram, Emmie Owen, and Decima Moore. The opera was the Savoy Theatre's first real flop.

Jane Annie closed at the Savoy on 1 July 1893 and went on tour to Bradford, Newcastle, Manchester, and Birmingham, until 26 August 1893. The tour was far more successful than the show had been in London. Barrington, a lifelong golf enthusiast, speculated that one reason for the failure of Jane Annie in London was that the game of golf was not yet popular there. Jane Annie has not been professionally revived.

Note on Terminology:

A proctor is a senior member of the university staff responsible for discipline, including assigning fines, as well as general administration. Bulldogs are the nickname of the university police, the officials who act on the proctor's behalf. A page is a young servant, usually in his teens, with responsibility for minor household tasks.

Jane Annie is set at a girls' boarding school near a famous English university town (implied to be Oxford).