‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder’ to launch national tour

The Tony Award-winning Broadway production of “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” will launch a national tour in September, with Chicago as the first stop. The 44-week tour, which producers announced Wednesday, will take the dark musical comedy to cities around North America, but no additional stops have been confirmed yet.

“Gentleman’s” opened at the Walter Kerr Theater in New York in the fall of 2013 and won four Tonys, including the award for new musical. The modestly scaled show had pre-Broadway runs at the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut and the Old Globe in San Diego.

A spokesman for the show said by phone that the Broadway production has not yet recouped its initial $7.5-million investment. However, he said that producers expect to do so in the near future.

“Gentleman’s” is based on a novel by Roy Horniman that was later turned into the movie “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” starring Alec Guinness. The plot centers on a young Englishman who attempts to elevate his social standing by murdering the members of a wealthy family.

In the New York cast, Jefferson Mays plays multiple roles, both male and female, as the eccentric members of the aristocratic D’Ysquith clan. No casting has been announced for the tour.

The musical is directed by Darko Tresnjak, who also won a Tony. The director is currently working with Los Angeles Opera on a new production of John Corigliano’s “The Ghosts of Versailles,” which is set to open Feb. 7 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

The national tour of “Gentleman’s” is set to begin with a two-week run at Chicago’s Bank of America Theatre from Sept. 29 to Oct. 11.

Twitter: @DavidNgLAT