Interview: Mary VanArsdel Says A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE & MURDER Will Be Spectacularly Funny at the Fisher Theatre!

Broadway in Detroit starts the new theatre season with A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder, Tony Award winner for Best Musical, on October 4th at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit. "I know you are going to have a spectacularly good time because everybody in every city always has," said Mary VanArsdel. "I think we live in times where people really need to laugh right now. This show will do it, more than just about anything because it's funny - really, really funny."

VanArsdel plays the role of Miss Shingle in A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder. "The show is about a young man named Monty Navarro who finds out through my character that he is 8th in line to inherit a vast fortune in England. I kind of set the ball rolling for him to explore whether or not he might be able to move his way up in that lineage and claim his rightful birth place; and he does it in very, very funny ways," she explained. "It's about his journey and how he gets to rise from poverty to inherit this great fortune."

VanArsdel has been in the business a long time working in regional theatre, film and television, and national tour of Mary Poppins. "I played Detroit on my last tour, which was two years across the country, and I'm looking forward to coming back. I'm hoping to see some of the revitalizations and developments they have done with the city that I have heard about," she said. "We've been doing this for almost a year now. It's a been really thrilling experience because the audiences have loved it in every city."

The show won the Tony Award for Best Musical and VanArsdel feels that is because this show is unlike any other out there. "The unusual title could be misleading, but should have no indication or imply anything because it doesn't really indicate that it's outrageously funny or how it's funny," she said. "When an audience is seeing a Tony Award winning show, they are seeing something pretty spectacular. Our show is special. Situationally it's funny, there is a lot of humor in the staging, but the lyrics in the show are very, very clever. It's not just that it's funny, it's funny in a clever way. It's more of unusual show that you wouldn't necessary see coming through the city all that often. It's a different time period with very clever staging, very clever lyrics, and performances that are spectacular."

A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder opens October 4th at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit. For more information or tickets, visit www.BroadwayInDetroit.com.

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