Ken Ludwig’s madcap comedy, “Lend Me A Tenor,” was a Broadway and West End sensation. It won three Tony and four Drama Desk awards. Ludwig set the play in the Cleveland Grand Opera Company in 1934. He shares his strategy of using opera as the backdrop for the play.
“Comedies are best if they’re set in a very specific world that is its own thing,” Ludwig explained. “So this is set in the world of an opera company in Cleveland, Ohio, where the opera impresario’s a big blustery fellow who’s got to get the play done on time. Then there’s his mousy assistant who wants to be an opera singer but is too shy to let anybody know about it. In his heart, he has greatness to him, but he’s being bossed around by his noisy boss.”
When world-famous Italian tenor Chito Morrelli goes missing on the eve of his U.S. debut, that assistant (Max) resolves to save the day, setting off a hilariously improbable chain of farcical events that has audiences howling with laughter.
“Farce is not a term that denigrates theater,” said Ludwig. “On the contrary, all it means is that’s it’s a comedy play that’s a little more muscular than you hear on a sitcom or a romantic comedy. It’s got a lot more action in it.”
Ludwig admits that the character of Chito Morrelli was inspired by the great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti.
“I listen to so much Pavarotti” Ludwig said. “I was inspired by this wonderful biography of Pavarotti at the time I was writing it. I read about opera more than I see it. I live in Washington D.C. and watching national opera is great, but they don’t do that many performances every year.”
Ludwig loved opera so much that he's written several other opera-based plays, including “A Comedy of Tenors” which, while not a sequel, does include some of the same characters.”
“I studied music as a student, but boy I got into the world of opera,” Ludwig added. “It has so many comic aspects. It’s so silly. They dress up in these elaborate costumes and then they sing their hearts out. But [it's] one of the two or three greatest art forms anyone can possibly imagine, and I just love it.”
The Studio Players perform in the Joan Jenks Auditorium at Golden Gate Community Center. "Lend Me A Tenor" is onstage March 28 through April 13.
MORE INFORMATION:
Ludwig was in Sarasota in January for the world premiere of his comic thriller, “Lady Molly of Scotland Yard,” at Asolo Repertory Theatre.
The playwright has now published 34 plays and the popular musical “Crazy for You,” being staged at Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre through April 6.
“Lend Me A Tenor” remains Ludwig’s most popular play.
“It’s the best one out of all of them,” Studio Players Producing Artistic Director Scott Lilly maintained.
The London Times called it a masterpiece. “Author Ken Ludwig has verve, a sound grasp of plot mechanics and a rare ability to couple high art with low comedy.”
The New York Times said “Lend Me A Tenor” is “one of the two great farces by a living writer.”
The Daily News concurred. “Ken Ludwig's 1989 Tony-winning comedy is one of only two classic farces by a living playwright, the other being Michael Frayn's frenetic ‘Noises Off.'”
It also was an Olivier Award Comedy of the Year nominee.
“’It is done all around the country and all around the world,” Ludwig observed. “All of these plays are done in about 25, 30 different languages. So they’re always around the world all the time.”
Ludwig still marvels at "Lend Me A Tenor's" success.
“So I wrote this play that became immensely popular, followed it up with ‘Moon Over Buffalo’ on Broadway, another real muscular comedy, and one after another, ‘A Comedy of Tenors,’ ‘Leading Ladies’ (about a small town theater company), another one called ‘The Fox in the Fairway’ (about golf), and I’ve written about 11 or 12 of these that I consider the center of what I want to be remembered for as my body of work,” Ludwig said.
Ludwig’s musical, “Crazy For You,” was on Broadway for five years, on the West End for three, and won the Tony and Olivier awards for Best Musical. It has been revived twice in the West End, is currently touring Japan and is onstage at Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre through April 5.
Since its European premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2022, Ludwig’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express” has had hundreds of international productions. He wrote the adaptation at the invitation of Agatha Christie Limited, which has since commissioned him to adapt “Murder on the Nile” for the stage.
In addition to Tony and Drama Desk awards, Ludwig has won the Edwin Forrest Award for Contributions to the American Theatre, two Laurence Olivier Awards, two Helen Hayes Awards, the Charles MacArthur Award, and the Edgar Award for Best Mystery of the Year. He was also nominated for an Emmy Award for writing the Kennedy Center Honors.
His other plays include “Baskerville,” “Sherwood,” “Twentieth Century,” “Dear Jack, Dear Louise” (which is based on his parents), “The Game’s Afoot,” “Shakespeare in Hollywood,” “Moriarty,” and most recently “Lady Molly of Scotland Yard.” They have starred, among others, Alec Baldwin, Carol Burnett, Tony Shalhoub, Joan Collins and Kristen Bell.
His book “How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare,” published by Penguin Random House, has been a bestseller and is out this year in a new, expanded edition. It won the Falstaff Award for Best Shakespeare Book of the Year.
His essays on theater are published in the Yale Review, and he gives the annual Ken Ludwig Playwriting Scholarship at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.
His first opera, “Tenor Overboard,” opened at the Glimmerglass Festival in July 2022.
His most recent world premieres were “Lend Me A Soprano” and “Moriarty.” His newest plays and musicals include “Pride and Prejudice Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley,” “Lady Molly of Scotland Yard,” “Beginner’s Luck,” and “Easter Parade.”
In addition to Agatha Christie Limited, he has been commissioned to write plays by the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Old Globe Theatre, and the Bristol Old Vic.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.