‘Comedy of Tenors’ goes for high notes and laughs at Florida Studio Theatre

Since he first arrived on Broadway in 1989 with his hit comedy “Lend Me a Tenor,” Ken Ludwig has become the go-to playwright for comedies,

He followed “Tenor” with the musical “Crazy for You” and the farce “Moon Over Buffalo,” helping to establish him as “America’s preeminent comic playwright,” according to Gordon Edelstein, the artistic director of San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre.

Ludwig, who gave up his law practice to focus on playwriting, has created more than two dozen other plays, most of which have not reached Broadway but have become popular in regional and community theaters.

In the Sarasota area, 2023 could be described as the year of Ken Ludwig. In January, Asolo Repertory Theatre produced his version of “The Three Musketeers,” one of several adaptations of classic stories he has written with a comedic spin, including “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” “Treasure Island” and “Murder on the Orient Express.”

This fall, Asolo Rep will present his musical hit “Crazy For You,” a revised version of the Gershwins’ “Girl Crazy,” which was named best musical at the 1992 Tony Awards. Ludwig recently updated the script for a current hit London revival.

And now, Florida Studio Theatre closes its summer mainstage season with one of his newer pieces, “A Comedy of Tenors,” a spinoff of “Lend Me a Tenor” which both he and director Sean Daniels insist requires no knowledge or awareness of the earlier play.

“It is not a sequel. I try to make sure people don’t think that way. They don’t have to see the first one to understand it,” Ludwig said in a recent phone interview. But the play does involve several of the same characters seen in “Lend Me A Tenor” and may have a plot reminiscent of the first play.

It’s about a producer/manager named Saunders who is trying to put on the biggest operatic concert in history (think of Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras) at an outdoor stadium in Paris in 1936, something unheard of at the time. One of the singers is Tito Merelli, who with his wife Maria caused a ruckus in “Lend Me a Tenor.” Saunders’ former assistant, Max, also factors into the story as a rising opera singer himself.

Ludwig said the idea for the play came to him after he saw a regional production of “Lend Me a Tenor.”

“I saw how much real joy that the play was giving the people and how much they liked the characters,” he said. “They love Saunders always demanding the most from his employees and yelling about it and Tito’s craziness. The pride in his singing and his love of opera and all things Italian makes us love him.”

Though he had never tried anything like it before, Ludwig thought about writing another play involving the same characters.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to look at where they are like five years later,” he said. “And now, as implied by the title, Max is really going to become an opera singer doing major roles and Tito will go on about his big life, and Saunders will once again try to hold everything together by the skin of his teeth.”

Once he had a premise, he found the play “was a joy to write because I know these characters from my toes to the top of my head. I only had to think of the story, what were they doing and what would be at stake for them.”

Daniels, who joined FST theater earlier this year as associate director after serving four years as artistic director at the Arizona Theatre Company, is staging his first mainstage production in Sarasota.

“It’s exciting because it’s a perfect mix of my favorite performers who have been with me my whole life and favorites of FST all mixed together,” he said. They include Andrew Benator as Saunders.

Benator was Daniels’ roommate in a 1990 Yale summer theater camp. “If you were like an aspiring theater nerd kid, you could go there and pretend you were an actor,” he said. He also is joined by two other longtime collaborators. Aaron Munoz plays Tito, and Jennifer Cody, who has been featured in numerous Broadway shows including “Urinetown” and “Shrek The Musical,” plays Tito’s demanding wife, Maria.

There also are several FST veterans returning. Michael Perrie Jr., who had the title role in FST’s “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story,” plays Max. Lucy Lavely, seen opposite Perrie in the Stage III production of “The Last Match,” plays Racon, a temperamental Russian soprano and Tito’s former lover. Alanna Smith, who was seen in “Smoke & Mirrors,” plays Mimi, the Merelli’s daughter, and Hank Von Kolnitz, who was seen in a couple of cabaret series shows, plays singer Carlo Nucci, Mimi’s love interest.

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Though it has farcical elements, Ludwig is not a fan of the word “farce.”

“I call them muscular comedies,” he said. “Comedies that partake of a strong situation that goes often wildly awry. The challenge for me is to write a good play.”

Daniels said “it’s more than a farce. I would call it a hilarious comedy.”

He also said it’s a timely celebration of the spirit behind the performing arts.

“At the end of the day, it is about people creating art at a time when they are foiled at every turn. Honestly, if they were sensible people, they would give up and produce something else,” Daniels said. “In 2023, art making is hard, so why is it worth it? Because when you get to that opening night, watch the audience being moved by something you create, you realize why the artists have toiled. It’s hilarious. People fall over couches and there’s a lot of fun, but it’s actually about something.”

‘A Comedy of Tenors’

By Ken Ludwig. Directed by Sean Daniels. Presented Aug. 2-20 in Florida Studio Theatre’s Gompertz Theatre, 1265 First St., Sarasota. $25-$39. 941-366-9000; floridastudiotheatre.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Playwright Ken Ludwig returns to Sarasota with ‘A Comedy of Tenors’