'A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder' opens in Tampa
Every Broadway show Steven Lutvak and Robert L. Freedman have ever written won the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Lutvak and Freedman's one and only Broadway show is "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder." It took 11 years from the time they started writing to the time it made it to the stage, but once the show hit New York it took Broadway by storm. It won four Tony Awards in 2014, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Direction of a Musical and Best Costume Design. Critics raved about it and some people who have seen a lot of theater say it's the best musical they've ever seen.
It's still running on Broadway -- it's scheduled to close in January after two years and two months -- and its first national tour has just started. The third stop on the tour will be at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa. It opens Tuesday and runs through Oct. 25.
The story's based on a 1907 novel called "Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal." It's about a guy who discovers that he's in the line of succession to inherit a title and a lot of money. But a lot of people are in front of him in that line, so he decides to murder all of them.
A critic for NPR said he had never laughed so hard at a Broadway musical as he did at "Gentleman's Guide."
"It's really funny," Lutvak said. "And when I say funny, I mean people will laugh their butts off."
A full interview with composer-lyricist Lutvak will appear in the Herald's Arts and Entertainment section Sunday.
Details: Oct. 20-25, Morsani Hall at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa. Show times 8 p.m. Tuesday and Friday, 7;30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $40-$95 plus service charge. Information: 813-229-7827, strazcenter.org.
Marty Clear, features writer/columnist, can be reached at 941-708-7919. Follow twitter.com/martinclear.
This story was originally published October 15, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "'A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder' opens in Tampa ."