A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

The story of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

Set in Edwardian England, the show follows Monty Navarro, a young man of modest means who discovers he is a distant heir to the wealthy D'Ysquith family fortune, eight relatives away from the earldom. Cut off from his late mother's family, Monty decides to close the gap himself, eliminating each obstructing D'Ysquith relative one by one while trying to maintain his charm and his conscience.

Along the way he juggles two women, the glamorous but mercenary Sibella Hallward and the earnest Phoebe D'Ysquith, while keeping up appearances as the family's murders mount. The show plays the premise for pitch-black comedy, treating each killing as an elaborate set piece rather than a horror, in the tradition of British farce and operetta.

The music and the makers

The show has music by Steven Lutvak, lyrics by Lutvak and Robert L. Freedman, and a book by Freedman, based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank by Roy Horniman, the same source material behind the classic film Kind Hearts and Coronets. The score borrows the light, operetta-flavored sound of Gilbert and Sullivan, full of patter songs, waltzes, and duets.

Much of its wit comes from its structure as much as its melodies, with one actor traditionally playing all nine D'Ysquiths, including the eight doomed heirs, in rapid costume changes, turning the score's variety into a showcase for comic versatility as each victim gets a distinct musical flavor before meeting an inventive end.

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder on Broadway

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder opened on Broadway in 2013 at the Walter Kerr Theatre, starring Bryce Pinkham as Monty Navarro and Jefferson Mays in the tour de force role of all nine D'Ysquith relatives. Mays and Pinkham were both nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and the show won four Tonys, including Best Musical.

The production ran into 2016, closing after more than two years on Broadway. Its success helped revive interest in old-fashioned operetta pastiche within modern musical theater, and it remains best known for the singular technical and comic challenge of its central multi-role performance.

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder: frequently asked questions