SVCT’s production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is an absolute delight to watch. Directed by Tressa Bender, the cast is incredible with some of the best singing I’ve heard in our local shows. It’s a dark, funny show — less well known than some titles — and well worth seeing. Many of the audience members during opening weekend remarked that this may be the best SVCT show they have ever seen! Huge cheers to Tressa, Jenn, and everyone involved for willing it into existence!
Lots of familiar-to-us-faces in this production, along with some exciting new folks!
We first met Director/Producer Tressa Bender when she directed SVCT’s Honk Jr. and then worked with her when she played Ms. Trunchbull in Mathilda. We also watched her in last year’s production of Sweeney Todd. We’re looking forward to seeing her upcoming production of Fiddler on the Roof this summer at the Lyric Theatre in San Jose.
Jenn Oliphant, who designed the sets and lighting and played Woman 4 as well as understudying for Miss Shingle, was awarded the Legacy Robe for all the amazing work she did on this show. She also first came into our lives with Honk Jr., and then we’ve worked with her and her family on The Drowsy Chaperone, Moana Jr., The Lightning Thief, and other shows. The set take inspiration from Disney’s Haunted Mansion and there are subtle elements of that snuck in (check out the fun singing portraits of deceased family members…)
Shawna Gonzales played the mom in SVCT’s A Christmas Story and we’ve been looking forward for a chance to see her perform here again! She plays Woman 2 and was particularly fun in the role of the Countess.
Stacia Stuart, who plays Miss Marietta Shingle (and a variety of other characters), was most recently in our Limelight by SVCT production of A Christmas Carol, and we’ve worked with her previously in Mathilda and Beauty and the Beast (where she had a memorable last-minute turn as a substitute Wardrobe and blew us all away).
Michael Grimm has been in seven SVCT shows, including most recently The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. We’ve also worked with him in Beauty and the Beast, and A Christmas Story, and also seen him previously in Sweeney Todd, Cabaret, Guys and Dolls, and 1776.
We’ve seen John Brewer (Man 2) in Sweeney Todd and Beauty and the Beast; Verose Deslonde (Woman 1) in The Drowsy Chaperone; and Lucy Nino (Phoebe D’Ysquith) as Joanna in Sweeney Todd.
New to us were the amazing Chris Brady (Monty Navarro), Ray DAmbrosio (the entire D’Ysquith Family), Logan Jenkins (Man 3), and Leslie Oesteruch (Woman 3).
The orchestra for this show is also particularly good— and Mark Wong as vocal director and Ron Bowman as music director deserve great kudos as well.
We were familiar with the show, having seen CMT’s production of A Gentleman’s Guide in March 2019 (when apparently it was the first local non-equity company granted the rights to the show). It was wonderful to see Briana Pember as Phoebe in that production.
Note: for this show, Clara was on the light board, Shachar helped a lot with set building, and Miriam and I worked front of house for some of the run. Big shout-out to Marianne Snook for stepping up last minute to help significantly with the production.
The show runs through May 18th — so get your tickets if you haven’t already!