Tony Awards 2014: ‘Gentleman’s Guide’ gets most nominations

It was a richly rewarding Tony Award morning for two regional theater companies, including one in Southern California.

“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” the darkly comic musical that ran at the Hartford Stage Co. in Connecticut and the Old Globe in San Diego before transferring to Broadway, walked away Tuesday with 10 Tony nominations, the most of any production this season.

The show received a nomination for new musical as well as nods for its two leading men — Jefferson Mays, who plays multiple roles, and Bryce Pinkham.

PHOTOS: Tony Awards 2014 - Top nominees

Receiving his first Tony nomination was director Darko Tresnjak, who is the former artistic director of the Old Globe’s Shakespeare Festival and has directed stage productions around Southern California. Tresnjak is now the artistic director of the Hartford Stage Co.

“Gentleman’s,” which is now running at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York, had its world premiere in Connecticut in 2012 and then ran at the Old Globe the following year.

The musical is the San Diego company’s latest production to make it to Broadway following such other shows as “A Catered Affair,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and “The Full Monty.”

“Gentleman’s” also received nominations for its script by Robert L. Freedman and its score by Freedman and Steven Lutvak. The musical is adapted from the 1907 novel “Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal” by Roy Horniman, which also served as the basis for the Alec Guinness movie “Kind Hearts and Coronets.”

The musical tells the story of the evil Monty Navarro (Pinkham), who attempts to murder the members of his family who stand in the way of his inheritance. Mays plays various members of the D’Ysquith family, who are comically bumped off.

Mays won a Tony in 2004 for his solo performance in the play “I Am My Own Wife.”

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