A ‘Gentleman’ with a murderous heart comes to the Segerstrom Center
“I am standing here with my poison in my pocket,” the lyricist sings into the phone as he taps on a piano. “One eye on the target, one eye on the clock. It better happen soon before I lose my nerve and run. If I had a knife, I could have grabbed him and discreetly knocked him on the head and stabbed him. Not to mention what I would have done if I had had a gun.”
Cut!
“Now, doesn’t that just sparkle and shine?” he quips.
He is Steven Lutvak, the award-winning composer, lyricist and arranger best known for creating the original songs for the musical comedy “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder.” And that verse, appearing in one of the musical’s many numbers, took him and his writing partner, Robert L. Freedman, six hours to conjure up and write, Lutvak said.
Just the verse, mind you.
“It wasn’t easy to write,” Lutvak said by phone recently from New York, referring to the entire show, “but I think we forgot that it was that challenging. It was great fun, and we just laughed our heads off working on it.”
What started as fragments of ideas eventually sprouted into a blockbuster show that won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Musical. The Broadway hit is now on its first national tour and will be making its Orange County debut at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts for six days starting Feb. 28.
“A Gentleman’s Guide” is the story of Monty Navarro, an heir to a family fortune who lusts for revenge — his mother had been banished because she married a man beneath her social class — and knocks off the eight relatives who stand between him and the title of Earl of Highhurst.
The musical is based on the Edwardian novel “Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal,” written by Roy Horniman in 1907. Its humor-laced story of murderous intrigue involving the British upper class received 10 Tony Award nominations in 2014 and won four, including Best Costume Design and Best Book of a Musical.
And yet the show almost never happened.
Lutvak and book writer and co-lyricist Freedman, both Broadway newcomers, spent about 10 years working to get “A Gentleman’s Guide” to the stage, most of that time in legal entanglements.
In 2010, the world premiere was delayed because of a lawsuit brought by the rights holders to the 1949 movie “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” who claimed the show was based on the film. A judge eventually ruled in favor of the live show.
Lutvak and Freedman, who graduated from Los Alamitos High School, met in a theater course at New York University. The two hadn’t collaborated much on projects but always admired each other’s work. When Lutvak suggested they write a musical based on the novel “Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal,” Freedman jumped at the chance.
“I just loved the story and thought it was perfect,” said Freedman, a screenwriter and dramatist best known for his teleplays for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” and the Emmy-winning miniseries “Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows.”
“The humor comes in because Monte is never less than a perfect gentleman, and each one he kills is odious, so you’re happy to see them bumped off, but in no way does the show advocate killing people to ascend the ladder,” Freedman, who is based in Sherman Oaks, said by a phone. “It’s the fantasy we all have of rising above our circumstances and getting revenge on the people who’ve made it impossible.”
To make the touring production jibe with a story about Edwardian aristocrats, Freedman said he researched Edwardian language and style so as to make the dialogue authentic and historical, and he also suggested the orchestra play acoustic-style so the sounds are reminiscent of the particular era.
“What’s thrilling is being in the back of the theater hearing people laugh,” Freedman said. “But the best compliment is when Brits can’t believe two Americans wrote it.”
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IF YOU GO
What: “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday from Feb. 28 to March 5
Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Cost: Tickets start at $29
Information: (714) 556-2787 or visit scfta.org.
Twitter: @KathleenLuppi
