Murder For Two
Opening Night: November 6, 2013
Closing: June 29, 2014
Theater: New World Stages
Mixing classic musical comedy with a dash of Agatha Christie, everyone is a suspect in this house of eccentric characters unfazed by the dead body on the floor. But this whodunit comes with a killer twist: one actor investigates the crime, the other plays all thirteen suspects, and they both play the piano!
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July 23, 2013
In any given Mutt-and-Jeff configuration, Jeff Blumenkrantz will always come out the Jeff. Long and lanky, he regularly towers over his scene partner(s), snap-crackle-and-popping a great face of comic elasticity at an altitude all his own.
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November 16, 2013
Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair’s Murder for Two is a the zany two-man murder-mystery musical that played an extended run at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre over the summer courtesy of Second Stage Uptown. Now moved to New World Stages, this show thrives on the improbably wacky and metatheatrical. It’s a sure winner with theater geeks (look for the Patti LuPone shout-out), but anyone with a sense of humor is going to walk away from this tuner with a big grin. This is showmanship at its finest.
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July 25, 2013
Second Stage Uptown’s new offering, Murder for Two, is a zany musical whodunit of agreeably modest intent: It doesn’t aspire to kill much more than time, and it succeeds. Brett Ryback, floppy-haired and faux-sincere, plays Marcus, a neophyte small-town policeman investigating a homicide; the victim is a famous local novelist, shot while arriving at his own surprise party, and any of the guests in attendance might have wanted him dead. (He has been spilling their secrets for years in his books.) In the gimmick that gives the show its name and much of its charm, ten Clue–style suspects at the scene—including the dead man’s dotty Southern wife, his eager niece, a gruff doctor, a femme fatale and three prepubescent boys—are played by a single actor, the rangy Jeff Blumenkrantz, in a mercurial stream of camp-inflected accents, props and mannerisms.
READ THE REVIEWNovember 5, 2013
Let’s give it up for two accomplished actors and pianists — Jeff Blumenkrantz and Brett Ryback — who utilize all the conventions of a cozy malice domestic to make Murder For Two hugely farcical and fun. The mystery musical, which has played at previous Manhattan venues, is now at New World Stages. Murder For Two features zippy songs and lyrics by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair. Mystery novelist Arthur Whitney is murdered at a birthday party — there are suspects galore, all played by the versatile Blumenkranz. He is transformed into a Southern society wife, simpering college girl, an aloof ballerina, a needy psychiatrist, etc., in the blink of an eye.
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July 26, 2013
Written by Joe Kinosian (book and music) and Kellen Blair (book and lyrics), Murder for Two, which won a prestigious Jefferson Award in Chicago for best new musical in 2011, is an ingenious miniature musical in the form of a snazzy vaudevillian double-act. The authors and the director, Scott Schwartz, deploy minimal stage resources to maximum effect. With just two actors, a piano and a prop or two, the show spins out a curlicued comic mystery story animated by funny, deftly turned songs.
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