Review: A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER at Austin Playhouse

Some musicals are built to make you cry. Some to haunt you. Others keep you laughing almost against your better judgment. A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder at Austin Playhouse, directed by Lara Toner Haddock, commits fully to the latter, and does so with gleeful precision.

The story is straightforward. Monty Navarro learns he is ninth in line for the D’Ysquith fortune, a family so saturated with privilege it feels less like lineage and more like a cautionary tale dressed in inherited wealth. With eight relatives ahead of him, Monty decides to clear his path to fortune. What follows is a series of carefully staged “accidents,” carried out so politely they almost feel like lessons in manners gone fatally wrong.

… an accidental fall
… an ice skating accident
… a traveling mishap
… a bee sting
… a prop mishap off stage
… a heart attack (or was it?)
… and the one everyone expects: poisoning. After all, Monty does walk around with “poison in his pocket” for half the show.

Why is this funny? Why does it never tip into moral lesson? Because it never tries to be anything but satire.

The D’Ysquiths are rich, unmistakably British nobility. They wear their privilege like it’s ordinary, while quietly dismissing anyone beneath them. That’s where the humor lives, in the gap between their casual superiority and their total blindness to it. The production doesn’t underline it. It just lets it sit, and trusts the audience to catch up.

The ensemble moves as one, tightly in sync. Everyone is listening, reacting, and feeding off each other, so the comedy lands cleanly without ever feeling forced.

Bailey Ellis plays Monty with a calm, understated charm that turns quietly dangerous. He moves without urgency, rationalizing each step, letting ambition build almost invisibly until it unsettles.

Sarah Manna’s Sibella is sharp, elegant, and always slightly calculating, never fixed as villain or victim. Sarah Zeringue’s Phoebe brings sincerity and clarity, a grounded honesty that cuts through the world around her. The tension between them feels both romantic and ideological.

Scott Shipman, as “The D’Ysquith family,” delivers a string of distinct, absurd characters who remain consistently funny. His Lady Hyacinth D’Ysquith is notable, all physical precision, vocal shift, and aristocratic superiority, especially in her performative charity work, where virtue is pure theatre.

Bernadette Nason’s Miss Marietta Shingle sets the tone with controlled authority and just enough mischief, always knowing when to step forward and when to fade.

The design keeps the pace clean and complements the story. With Lyn Koenning leading, the orchestra stays crisp and balanced, supporting the actors without overpowering them (a challenge in most small spaces).

It’s easy to forget how funny this show is. That’s the point. It isn’t chasing depth or trying to change your life. It’s built for speed, precision, and pure entertainment. The structure is tight, the timing sharper still. The show pushes right to the edge of the absurd and then steps over it without apology.

Austin Playhouse's Gentleman does exactly what is meant to do: it grabs your attention and your laughter, and it holds them in its grasp until the lights go out.

Cast: Bailey Ellis, Sarah Manna, Sarah Zeringue, Bernadette Nason, Scott Shipman, Ella Mia Carter, Matt Connely, Megan DeYoung, Nathan Daniel Ford, Matthew Joseph Garcia, and Sara Teeter.

Run time: 2 hours and 15 minutes, including one intermission

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

music and lyrics by Steven Lutvak

lyrics and book by Robert L. Freedman

Based on a novel by Roy Horniman

Directed by Lara Toner Haddock

Now playing through May 17th, 2026

Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 PM

Sundays at 2:00 PM

Austin Playhouse 

(West Campus location)

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