Why This Year’s Utah Shakespeare Festival Will Be The Best Yet

Those of you who know me personally understand that I’m a ginormous theater geek. I love musicals and anything that graces the stage. That’s why this year’s shows for the Utah Shakespeare Festival have me so excited. 

The 2025 schedule for the festival features Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Steel Magnolias. 

You may have noticed the bold text. The reason why it’s bold is because A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is one of my favorite musicals of all time and is rarely performed in Southern Utah. 

The show is about a bachelor who finds out he’s related to a notorious and very rich family known as the D’Ysquith family. Our protagonist, Monty Navarro, learns he is eighth in line to inherit the D’Ysquith estate and earldom. 

He initially tries to befriend his relatives in hopes of one day receiving some renown to impress a woman, but he soon realizes the D’Ysquiths are better off dead. 

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder won numerous awards at the 2014 Tony Awards, and this includes Best Musical.  

Bear in mind the show is one of my absolute favorites, but it’s also rather...dark. It’s a show about murder, but it portrays it in a comedic and morbid kind of way. There are also many references to sexual acts through innuendos and double entendres.  

The show is incredibly funny, but it can be rather crude at times. That doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but I know it can get other folks in a tizzy.  

Let me say this, if you give this wonderful musical a chance, you will come out of the theater with a smile on your face and a slightly uncomfortable ache in your belly from all the laughter.  

The other shows featured at the Utah Shakespeare Festival are going be great I’m sure, but the one to look out for is A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.  Tickets are now available through the festival website with the show opening on June 26 with previews available starting June 19. The show will close on October 3, so take advantage of this rare opportunity.