page_title: Sybil Grey
section_title: Early life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Sybil Grey / Early life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: 1885 photo of Sybil Grey, Leonora Braham and Jessie Bond in The Mikado. This image is in the public domain.
context_page_description: Sybil Grey, born Ellen Sophia Taylor, was a British singer and actress during the Victorian era best known for creating a series of minor roles in productions by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, including roles in several of the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas, from 1880 to 1888. Afterwards, she went on to a long West End theatre career, appearing in both musical theatre and plays.
context_section_description: Grey was born in London’s Conduit Street West, the second daughter of Henry Taylor, a linen draper, and his Exeter-born wife Susannah. Grey began her stage career with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1880 as a member of the chorus and understudy during the first London production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance at the Opera Comique, appearing in the small role of Kate for a short period in July 1880.  In the company's next opera, Patience, also at the Opera Comique, Grey was in the chorus but may also have understudied the role of Lady Saphir.  After Patience  moved to the new Savoy Theatre in November 1881, Grey also played the non-singing role of Jane in the curtain raiser Mock Turtles by Frank Desprez and Eaton Faning.
  Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe followed at the Savoy in November 1882.  Grey created the non-singing role of Fleta, while continuing as Jane in Mock Turtles.  When Mock Turtles was replaced by A Private Wire in March 1883, Grey played Mary, the maid.  Later that year, she was given the singing role of Leila in Iolanthe.  She continued as both Mary and Leila until January 1884, when both operas closed.  In the next Gilbert and Sullivan opera, Princess Ida, she created the role of Sacharissa.  When that opera closed, she was in the chorus of the revival of The Sorcerer and played the minor role of First Bridesmaid in the accompanying Trial by Jury.
  Grey created the role of Peep-Bo, one of the three Little Maids, in the original production of The Mikado, with Jessie Bond (Pitti-Sing) and Leonora Braham (Yum-Yum), for the show's entire run from 1885 to 1887. In an 1885 interview with the New York Daily Tribune, author W. S. Gilbert stated that the short stature of Braham, Bond and Grey "suggested the advisability of grouping them as three Japanese school-girls" referred to in the opera as the 'three little maids'".  The Theatre of April 1885 said, "Miss Sybil Grey is one of the valuable recruits above alluded to.  She has a pretty voice, her intonation is correct and her appearance attractive."
  After this long engagement, Grey withdrew from the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. After a short tour with May Holt's company, from December 1887, Grey had roles in two musical burlesques by composer Meyer Lutz at the Gaiety Theatre in London, then managed by George Edwardes. One was Vanilla in Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim, with a libretto by Richard Henry. The other was as Zillah in Miss Esmeralda, or The Maid and the Monkey, By April 1888, she was also playing Polly in the farce Lot 49, which she also played at a benefit for Nellie Farren. In June 1888, she returned to the Savoy for the first revival of The Mikado, playing her old role of Peep-Bo.  During this run, she took roles in two benefit performances of Gilbert's blank verse "fairy plays".  The first was Lady Amanthis in Broken Hearts at a charity matinée at the Savoy, in a cast that included Julia Neilson, Richard Temple and Lewis Waller. The other was in The Wicked World, along with George Alexander and Lionel Brough. In September of that year, after the Mikado revival's run ended, she again left the D'Oyly Carte company, never to return.
caption: Grey, Braham and Bond in The Mikado
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