Review: A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE at Olney Theatre Center

Olney Theatre Center's 2025-26 season has really had it all. From big, crowd-pleasing classics to intimate and odd-ball one-person premieres, artistic director Jason Loewith has put together an eclectic and exciting season that continues Olney's fine form as a capital of engaging and inventive theater of truly high quality. Now, Loewith and his team are bringing the season to a raucous close with a bold, showy production of one of the sharpest musical farces of the 21st century, the joyously witty and wacky A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.

Winner of the 2014 Tony Award for Best Musical, A Gentleman's Guide follows Montague "Monty" Navarro (Jacob Tischler), a prospectless young bachelor. After the funeral of his mother, the only family he knew, he is visited by a strange woman (Donna Migliaccio), who tells him that his mother was actually a disowned member of the supremely wealthy D'Ysquith family—a secret she'd carried to her grave—making Monty ninth in line to inherit the D'Ysquith fortune from its current patriarch, Lord Adalbert D'Ysquith, the Earl of Highhurst (Tom Story).

While initially optimistic about the news, dreaming of rising into the noble class, Monty is quickly disabused of his naivety when his initial attempt to welcome himself into the family is briskly and rudely shot down. Undeterred—or, rather, further provoked—Monty takes matters into his own hands, careens unceremoniously into the lives of the eight D'Ysquiths before him in the succession, an extravagantly boorish bunch, each quirkier and more foppish than the last.

Armed with the knowledge that these distasteful eight are all that stands between Monty and the bountiful riches and status he so deeply desires—at least in theory—he begins plotting and scheming his way up the family tree as the D'Ysquiths, comically crushed under the weight of their own increasingly eccentric and dangerous fancies, all but willingly plunge to their deaths before him — one by one.

All the while, Monty must also balance his rampage of sophisticated death and destruction with the love triangle that is his ongoing affair with married socialite Sibella Hallward (Sumié Yotsukura) and simultaneous blooming romance with another of the D'Ysquith clan, the young Miss Phoebe (Sadie Koopman), who, being of his same generation, thankfully need not be done away with.

Just like that, the stage is set for a night of macabre tomfoolery and tuneful turns. With a moving, memorable score by Steven Lutvak, incessantly clever and wordplay-filled lyrics by Lutvak and Robert L. Freedman, and Freedman's dark and fiendish book sending up the class warfare of British society in the shadow of the Victorian era's demise, A Gentleman's Guide is a unique and enduring piece of theater bound together by one defining conceit: that all members of the D'Ysquith family are portrayed by a single actor.

For Olney's production, that herculean task is taken on by Tom Story, who instantly transforms from young to old, man to woman, meek to brutish, infusing each D'Ysquith with their own brand of lovingly hateful upper-class charm. Story stars opposite the affable, effortlessly charismatic Jacob Tischler as Monty Navarro. A Gentleman's Guide gives its lead nary a moment's rest and, from start to end, Tischler belts, orates, dances, bounces, and carries his way through the demanding role. As a unit, Story and Tischler have a magnetic chemistry, climaxing in their euphemistic duet "Better With a Man."

Sumié Yotsukura is delightful as the sensual Sibella, fleshing out the love interest with a domineering energy that she contrasts well with little moments of bashful insecurity. She's well paired against the showstopping Sadie Koopman as the neurotic Miss Phoebe, Yotsukura's soft, warm voice acting as a foil to Koopman's tremendously powerful upper range, masterfully tinted with wonderful little nervous mannerisms. Both shine alongside Tischler and their trio "I've Decided to Marry You."

The biggest surprise in Olney's A Gentleman's Guide is to be found in the ensemble, composed of Simone Ballinger-Brown, Anna Maria C. Ferrari, Benjamin Lurye, Canter Irene O'May, Decarlo J. Raspberry, and Karen Vincent. It is common enough for musical ensembles to disappear into the background a bit, but in this case each member of the ensemble stands apart as a pivotal component of the production. Together, they harmonize beautifully. Apart, they fully come alive in a dazzling array of new characters. O'May and Raspberry stand out, becoming entirely unrecognizable and stealing the spotlight in many of their varied roles.

It's all a credit to director Eleanor Holdridge. This Gentleman's Guide is well-measured and well-paced, confidently transposed onto the Roberts Mainstage, a space that lives in a somewhat magical sweet spot: large enough to comfortably fit a full-bodied, sing-and-dance musical, small enough to feel intimate and have no bad views. In all of the rapid-fire time-shifting, location-hopping, and non-stop action, with actors flipping from character to character, Holdridge maintains a vital clarity throughout that keeps the ride firmly planted on the rails at all times.

The production is further buoyed by Sarah Cubbage's seemingly endless lineup of gorgeous, intricate costumes. Regional theater attempts at Edwardian era wares can easily come off as cheap and lifeless, but here they are anything but, and the liberal variety on display is an essential element of helping the actors jump from one well-dressed character to another with ease.

A Gentleman's Guide was praised for its production design in its initial runs and scenic designer John Coyne has done well to bring a lot of that same inventiveness and theater magic to Olney's take. Fun ornaments and details abound and the central concept of the set within a set offers plentiful opportunities and unexpected twists, many of which are taken full advantage of through vignettes of various settings and landscapes. It does feel that the production runs a bit out of steam in this area, with settings getting progressively barer towards the latter half of the show. The inclusion of neon light strips throughout the set is also a bit of a garish touch which takes away from the otherwise well-established turn-of-the-twentieth-century aesthetic.

Sat center stage, quite literally, is the excellent eight-piece pit orchestra conducted by music director Christopher Youstra. Nothing can beat having the live orchestra right there, perfectly in balance with the cast, and highlighting the soloistic nature of the orchestrations by the one and only Jonathan Tunick. Still, with the slight truncations to the orchestra's size, it's a meaningfully noticeable shame not to have the pleasure of a live percussionist amongst the ensemble.

And yet, even with a few limitations here and there, this Gentleman's Guide punches far above its weight and fully does justice to Olney's storied history in summer stock. Theater so full of unrestrained passion is a rarity, and with big laughs, catchy songs, and no less than eight elaborate death scenes, this is the show of the summer.

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