Asolo Rep goes ‘all for one’ with comedic new ‘Three Musketeers’

Asolo Repertory Theatre has presented versions of Alexandre Dumas’ enduring story “The Three Musketeers” twice before in the last 42 years, but never quite like the production that Peter Amster is staging to kick off the new year and the start of the winter repertory season.

This production, which begins Wednesday, features a script by Ken Ludwig, best known for the comedy “Lend Me a Tenor” and the musical “Crazy for You,” as well as the stage version of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” which was a hit at Asolo Rep two years ago.

Director Peter Amster, who also staged “Murder,” said Ludwig injects humor and some new twists while following the original story about young man named D’Artagnan who hopes to become one of the elite Musketeers of the Guard. Until that can happen, he joins forces with three of the most notable Musketeers – Athos, Porthos and Aramis – as they get involved in matters of justice and politics.

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“It is every bit the swashbuckler, all for one and one for all that you imagine it to be,” Amster said. “It’s an adventure story. There’s political intrigue and church and state with Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu.”

Dumas wrote it in chapters that were published serially, “so people would read it as each new one came out, with a cliffhanger at the end of each one. That feeling returns in a way in his play.”

Amster, who has mostly staged comedies at Asolo Rep, including recent productions of “Born Yesterday,” “A Dolls House, Part 2,” “Living on Love” and “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” said “The Three Musketeers” is Ludwig’s best work to date.

“The stakes are clear, the danger is clear. It’s very funny, much like ‘Murder on the Orient Express,’ except the jokes are more organic and really lead into the action,” he said. “It comes from the characters rather than the comic mousetrap he tends to build. I looked at three other versions for the stage, and I kept coming back to this one.”

He insists he didn’t choose it because Ludwig came to see “Murder” two years ago and suggested that Amster also direct “Musketeers.”

“It’s not because he flattered me about our production, though I am susceptible to flattery,” the director said.

Ludwig was commissioned to adapt the novel by the Bristol Old Vic in England. In an interview for that theater’s program, Ludwig said the most bracing part of the novel is the characters. “One after another, Dumas creates these iconic, mythic people who vibrate with life. D’Artagnan is the quintessential young man from the country who seeks his fame and fortune in the big city.”

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Among Ludwig’s improvements, Amster said, was involving D’Artagnan’s sister, Sabine, who “becomes as heroic as he is. All the women in the show are either victims or the embodiment of evil, nothing in between. This gives agency for at least one woman in the cast to be something more.”

Ludwig said he added Sabine to give the story a more modern feel. He also “thought it was important that D’Artagnan has someone in the story to whom he’s genuinely devoted. It means there’s more at stake.”

The audience watches as Sabine and D’Artagnan learn the ways of the world. “They shed some of their misplaced idealisms and see how cruel the world can be and come out the other side braver, stronger, larger characters than when we first saw them,” Amster said.

This version also “invites a multicultural perspective and that’s what we have attempted to do. We’re telling a larger story that if we work together we can accomplish more things than we can apart,” he said. “One for all – we have to take care of each other.”

Amster’s cast features many of the third-year students in the FSU/Asolo Conservatory including Evan Stevens as D’Artagnan, Erin O’Connor as Sabine, Imani Williams as Queen Anne, Peter S. Raimondo as King Louis XIII, Jerald Wheat as the Duke of Buckingham, along with Dreaa Kay Baudy, Joe Ayers and Macaria Chaparro Martinez. The Musketeers are played by Rasell Holt as Aramis, Dean Linnard as Porthos and Leight Samuels as Athos, with Jay Russell as Cardinal Richelieu and Tracie Lane as the Milady, a spy for Richelieu.

The production reunites Amster with costume designer Tracy Dorman, who previously designed “Murder” as well as “The Crucible,” “The Little Foxes” at Asolo Rep. Sets are by Adam Koch in his Asolo Rep debut, and lighting is by James Lawlor III.

The production will run in rotating repertory through March 26 with three other shows this winter – Lauren Gunderson’s “Silent Sky” (Jan. 19-March 5), Douglas Lyons’s “Chicken & Biscuits” (Feb. 15-April 13) and Katie Forgette’s “Incident at Our Lady of Perptual Help“ (March 15-April 22). The season closes May 10-June 11 with the musical “Man of La Mancha.”

‘The Three Musketeers’

By Ken Ludwig, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas. Directed by Peter Amster. Runs Jan. 11-March 26 at Asolo Repertory Theatre, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets start at $33. 941-351-8000; asolorep.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Asolo Rep brings comedic new ‘Three Musketeers’ to Sarasota audiences