Oscar Derkx and Ron Pederson in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Adam Goudreau
By Liz Nicholls, .ca
“Why are all the D’Ysquiths dying?”
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That’s what an ingenuous graveside corps of singing mourners wonders in a funny number in the big, killer musical comedy opening Friday in a Grindstone Theatre ‘Mainstage Series’ production at the Orange Hub.
In A Gentleman’s Guide To Love and Murder, the filthy-rich bluebloods are dropping like flies. Mainly because Monty Navaro, a distant and disinherited D’Ysquith living in penury, is knocking them off, one after another, all the family members who stand between him and becoming the ninth Earl of Highhurst.
The determined Monty has a long line of heirs to dispatch en route to the title. And here’s a big part of the fun of the zany, effervescent Tony-winning 2013 Broadway musical adapted from the same 1907 novel (Roy Horniman’s Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal) that inspired the 1949 Alec Guinness film Kind Hearts and Coronets: all the doomed D’Ysquiths, every age and gender, are played by one extremely busy actor.
Ron Pederson in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Adam Goudreau
In Byron Martin’s production, he’s actor/playwright/improv comedy star Ron Pederson. He’s back in his home town from Toronto to die in creative ways, bumped off by the “very charming serial killer” played by Oscar Derkx. The latter was most recently seen by Edmonton audiences from his double-duty as Flute the bellows mender and rock band musician in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: the ‘70s musical at the Citadel,
We caught up with the murderer and his victims, happily ensconced in rehearsals for Martin’s production, the biggest yet for Grindstone with a cast of 11 and live band of seven led by musical director Simon Abbott. Both actors were lured by the unusual attractions of the musical by Robert L. Freedman (book) and Steven Lutvak (music).
Ron Pederson in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Adam Goudreau.
“It’s a BIG show, bigger than it looks on the page, chock full of music, a zillion scenes…. And I’m half the cast for gawd’s sake,” Pederson jokes, about his nine-character assignment, a non-pareil quick-change challenge. “The style and size of it are so fun…. There’s definitely something operetta, something English music hall, about it. A parody, yes, and an homage.”
“Huge, and it moves very quickly,” says Derkx. “I remember seeing a number at the Tonys (when A Gentleman’s Guide won four), thinking OMG, what is this show? I want to be in this show! I like musicals but don’t often have that response…. This was such high stakes, so funny, ridiculous, kind of sexy.”
In a musical theatre landscape dominated by pop scores, A Gentleman’s Guide stands apart. And Pederson and Derkx, musical connoisseurs both, have appreciated that. “This feels so different,” says the latter. “I find it refreshing on the ear to go back to a more classical sound.”
“It references Gilbert and Sullivan, the call and response from the ensemble, with a modern flair that gives it an extra sauciness,” says Derkx. “Lots of difficult little chromatic runs and crunchy harmonies. When I’m listening to some of the work the ensemble does in those harmony lines, it feels like they’re pulling notes out of thin air! So impressive.”
Pederson finds a point of comparison in the 1978 Cy Coleman musical On The Twentieth Century, for the “outsized feel to it. The emotions are high. There’s melodrama. All that is fun for the actors.” And so is the high-speed craziness of his own multiple roles. “Nine characters! And most of them have a musical number…. Rehearsals are exhausting! I keep going ‘O great, we finished that number, I wonder what’s next’. And … it’s me! I’m up again!” He laughs.
Pederson describes the show, including its song lyrics, as “very language-forward, florid and fluid…. I have a couple of patter songs, a little ballad,” and more more more. “Very tricky complex music. All new to me, and really demanding, really fun.”
“The guy I play the most,” he says, is “the current Earl, Adalbert D’Ysquith, an aggressive bully” and the last of Monty’s murderous rampage through his relatives. “Some of them are more morally questionable than others.”
Derkx echoes that thought. “How do we feel about a despicable act when it’s done to a despicable person? Do we forgive Monty for murdering all these people because these people are SO awful? Or do we feel a bit conflicted? That’s the fun I’m looking forward to having with the audience. Are you with me still, still cheering for me after I’ve killed five people, six…? And I kill them in pretty awful ways. Have you thought much about being stung to death by bees?”
Oscar Derkx and Sawyer Craig in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Adam Goudreau
The fun of Monty, Derkx is finding, is that he’s so “wide-eyed, boyish and innocent. A sweet boy, asking about the family but thinking ‘how are you going to die?’”
Pederson arrives back in Edmonton after a no-pause year that has included the musical Beauty and the Beast at Western Canada Theatre n Kamloops, an Ottawa run of Flop! the improvised musical he and Ashley Botting brought to Rapid Fire Theatre in 2024. And in addition to a packed schedule of teaching improv workshops, he toured with the Toronto Young People’s Theatre production of The Darkest Dark, a stage adaptation of the kids book by astronaut Chris Hadfield.
The enterprising Pederson commissioned Teatro Live! playwright Stewart Lemoine to write him a solo piece, Or You Can Do Nothing, with the idea of “shopping it around and taking it places.” Jackie Maxwell, one of the country’s premium theatre artists, directed the one-night run. And bookings are starting, in Ontario in 2026. A Edmonton run? “Probably.” As Pederson describes, “it seems so simple and adds up to beautiful things…. Comic but in the vein of The Exquisite Hour.”
And here’s more news, people. Mark Meer and Jacob Banigan will be short Pederson for the annual Gordon’s Big Bald Head Fringe run improvising any title in that capacious program. He’ll be in Vancouver, playing the blackmailing banker Krogstad in the Arts Club production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. “And there’s not a joke in that play,” he laughs. “It’s going to be like a holiday!”
Oscar Derkx in A Gentleman’s Guide To Love and Murder, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Adam Goudreau.
As speaking as we are of busy-ness, and complicated schedules, Derkx and his theatre artist wife Gianna Vacirca are new parents. Their eight-month son Remy hung out at Midsummer Night’s Dream rehearsals at the Citadel, where they both were working, Derkx in the cast, and Vacirca as the choreographer. And then they went to Europe to introduce Remy to Derkx’s Dutch relatives in Eindhoven in the Netherlands and Vacirca’s Italian relatives in Milan and Rome.
After Gentleman’s Guide, Edmonton audiences will see Derkx, a sometime Teatro leading man, in Teatro’s The Odd Couple in July. And then, in September, “another big challenge” for guitar chops honed in the Beatles’ As You Like It at the Citadel, and further still in Dream. Derkx is understudying both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in the fall tribute show at the Mayfield. “I love those guys! That folky magical sound, that thumping finger-style guitar behind their vocals.”
Aniqa Charania in A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, Grindstone Theatre. Photo by Adam Goudreau
Meanwhile, there’s a big juicy Broadway musical. As usual with Grindstone, Martin, has assembled a mixture of veterans like Cathy Derkach and Ruth Alexander, and newcomers, recent theatre school grads. “Terrific singers,” says Pederson of Martin’s cast. “I really like Byron’s gumption, his derring-do,” he says, summoning a word that would have delighted G&S. “Very Edmonton I think….”
PREVIEW
A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder
Theatre: Grindstone
Written by: Robert L. Freedman (book) and Steven Lutvak (music), Freedman and Lutvak (lyrics)
Directed by: Byron Martin
Starring: Ron Pederson, Oscar Derkx, Sam Hutchings, Sawyer Craig, Ruth Alexander, Aniqa Charania, Cathy Derkach, David Michael Juma, Max Fingerote, Tana Bumhira, Zakary Matsuba
Where: Orange Hub, 10045 156 St.
Running: Friday through June 1
Tickets: grindstonetheatre.ca
