A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, the homicidally hilarious quadruple-Tony-winning Best Musical of 2014, now fills the Cerritos Center For The Performing Arts with murderous mirth as the latest Broadway-caliber regional premiere from 3-D Theatricals.

 Meet Monty Navarro (Nick Tubbs), a handsome, personable young chap whose recently deceased mother’s youthful marriage to a Castilian musician ended up getting her not only pregnant but disowned, and who now finds himself ninth in line to the D’Ysquith (“D’Y” as in “die”) fortune.

 Not only does news of his late mother’s disinheritance give Monty reason enough to contemplate revenge, the refusal of his beautiful but mercenary sweetheart Sibella Hallward (Julia Burrows) to marry a man without means seals the deal, sending our hero off to dispose of D’Ysquith after D’Ysquith in the most entertaining of ways including thin ice, bee stings, loaded prop gun, and more, much much more.

 What our merry murderer hasn’t counted on is meeting distant cousin Phoebe D’Ysquith (Kelley Dorney), and when the latter shows up at Monty’s doorstep at the same time as Sibella, expect some of the funniest, most sharply timed physical comedy this side of French farce.

Oh, and did I mention that every single one of Monty’s victims is portrayed by one spectacular actor, SoCal musical theater superstar Jeff Skowron?

 For a musical comedy like A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder to work as splendidly as this one does, not only must our antihero be as sympathetic as the ever so likeable Monty most definitely is despite his pesky predilection for murder, the musical’s tone must also be frothy and gay, and not just when victim number five, Henry D’Ysquith, informs Monty in delectable double-entendre, that “It’s Better With A Man.”

 Fortunately for audiences from Broadway to Cerritos, Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak’s lyrics** are every bit as sparkling and witty as Freedman’s book*, from Lord Adalbert’s “I Don’t Understand The Poor” to Lady Hyacinth’s “Around The World With Lady Hyacinth” (“Every dilettante will envy me and want a colony of lepers of her own!”), and many more in between.

Steven Lutvak’s tunes** match them to perfection, the talented composer’s melodies evoking greats as diverse as Gilbert & Sullivan, Lerner & Lowe, and Stephen Sondheim.

 To replicate the theatergoing experience that delighted Broadway and National Tour audiences for five years, 3-D Theatricals has not only secured the production’s original sets, costumes and projection designs but brought on board original Broadway choreographer Peggy Hickey*** to put her own spin on Darko Tresnjak’s Tony-winning direction in addition to recreating her own jaunty, intricately-timed dance steps.

 What sets 3-D’s regional premiere apart from the National Tour that played both the Ahmanson and the Segerstrom is its almost entirely local cast headed by the inimitable Skowron, stealing scene after scene after scene while bending gender after gender as a wonderfully weird Reverend Lord Ezekial, a fabulously flaming Henry, a deliciously dotty Lady Hyacinth, and (at least) five more of equally outrageous quirks.

 Tubbs, fresh from his dramatic star turn in PCPA’s The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, more than holds his own against all those Skowrons, his Monty proving as loveable as he is nefarious … and dashing as all get-out.

The New York-based Burrows’ comely, curvaceous Sibella sings with an angel’s pipes matched by L.A. very own Dorney, adding the feisty, captivating Phoebe to the long list of lead roles in which she has enchanted Angelinos.

Tracy Lore puts her own trademark stamp on the weird and wacky Miss Shingle, and the SoCal treasure is matched by her fellow L.A.-based stars in one delicious cameo after another including Calvin Brady’s Tom Copley and Guard, Justin Charles Cowden’s Mr. Gorby, Richie Ferris’s Chief Inspector Pinckney, and Dayna Sauble’s Miss Barley, with special snaps to Jean Kauffman’s scenery-(and husband)-chewing Lady Eugenia opposite Skowron’s equally set-(and spouse)-devouring Lord Adalbert.

 Julie Lamoureux not only musical directs to melodious perfection but conducts A Gentleman’s Guide’s Broadway-caliber twelve-piece orchestra as they bring to life Jonathan Tunick’s exquisite orchestrations**.

Alexander Dodge’s scenic design** cleverly inserts a Edwardian-era music hall stage inside the Cerritos Center proscenium, each new parting of its red velvet curtains revealing yet another unexpected visual treat thanks to projection designer Aaron Rhyne’s clever, stunningly saturated animations.

Linda Cho’s period costumes* range from lavish gowns to funereal black, the many character-defining outfits she’s created for the eight D’Ysquith heirs being particular treats.

 Jean-Yves Tessier’s vivid lighting design, Julie Ferrin’s crisp sound design (program credit shared with original Broadway designer Dan Moses Schreier), Peter Herman’s luxuriant wigs, and properties coordinators Melanie Cavaness and Gretchen Morales’s period-perfect props score sky-high marks as well as does Caitlin Muelder’s dialect coaching.

Bill Burns is associate director/choreographer.  T.J. Dawson is executive producer. Vernon Willet is production stage manager and Terry Hanrahan is assistant stage manager. Amber Snead is casting director. Musicians are provided by Los Angeles Musicians Collective.

A bright-and-breezy (and unapologetically amoral) alternative to the darkness and drama of fellow 21st-century Best Musical Tony winners Spring Awakening, Fun Home, and Dear Evan Hansen, A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder has no other goal in mind but to entertain, and entertain it does. You might not actually die laughing, but at the Cerritos Center For The Performing Arts, you’ll come close.

*Tony Award winner
**Tony Award nominee
***Outer Critics Circle Award nominee

Cerritos Center For The Performing Arts, 12700 Center Ct Dr S, Cerritos.
www.3dtshows.org

–Steven Stanley
February 16, 2019
Photos: Caught In The Moment Photography

Tags: 3-D Theatricals, Cerritos Center For The Performing Arts, Los Angeles Theater Review, Robert L. Freedman, Steven Lutvak