NYU Skirball Center will honor the late Tony Award-winning composer Steven Lutvak, the musical mind behind the Tony Award-winning musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, with performances and tributes from family and friends in a celebration of his life on Thursday, July 18 – which would have been his 65th birthday – at 3:00 PM.
The event will include performances by Broadway Inspirational Voices, Crystal Monee Hall, Bryce Pinkham, Catherine Walker, Scarlett Strallen, Catherine Porter, Lori Wilner, and Jenna Pastuszek, and feature songs from A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder (Tony Award for Best Musical, 2014), his albums Ahead of My Heart and The Time It Takes, and several never-before heard works-in-progress.
Born and raised in the Bronx, Lutvak was a multi-hyphenate, working as a cabaret performer, music arranger, director, and as a performance coach in addition to his songwriting and compositional work. As a singer-songwriter, he performed across the country, including New York engagements at Carnegie Hall. He made his Broadway debut with A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder in 2014, for which he composed the music, and co-wrote the lyrics with Robert L. Freedman.
Other musicals by Lutvak include Almost September, The Wayside Motor Inn (an adaptation of a play by A. R. Gurney), and Esmeralda. For the screen, he composed the title track for the film Mad Hot Ballroom, and the score to Anything But Love, starring Eartha Kitt and Andrew McCarthy. Lutvak received the Kleban Award for Lyric Writing for the Theater, the Fred Ebb Award for Songwriting for the Theater alongside Freedman, the American Theatre Wing’s Jonathan Larson Grant, the Johnny Mercer Foundation’s Emerging American Songwriter Award, two Bistro Awards, three MAC Awards, and multiple ASCAP Awards.
Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Admission is free, but reservations are encouraged. For tickets, please visit tickets.nyu.edu/stevenlutvak
NYU Skirball Center is located at 566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY
