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Twin Lakes Playhouse opens Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express” on Aug. 14, closing in on the last stretch of rehearsals for a show that has to put a moving train on a community theater stage.
Performances run through Aug. 30 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Friday and Saturday shows start at 7 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.
The play is Ken Ludwig’s adaptation, commissioned by Christie’s estate and first staged in 2017. It was the first play built around Hercule Poirot to reach a stage in more than 75 years. Ludwig trimmed the novel’s cast and added humor while keeping the Belgian detective at the center.
Joanne Helms directs, with Ronna Fulton as assistant director. Helms said she picked the play because it is a classic and because she enjoyed watching her daughter perform in it.
She is staying close to Christie’s script rather than reworking it. “I want the comedy, but I want it to happen naturally,” Helms said.
The cast mixes veterans of the Twin Lakes stage with first-timers. Karen Maupin plays the brash American Helen Hubbard, Olivia Wolfe returns as the Countess and Sue Howe plays Princess Dragomiroff. A familiar local actor takes on Poirot, and a newcomer plays the victim.
The story comes from Christie’s 1934 novel. A snowdrift stops the luxury train as it crosses Europe, and a wealthy American passenger named Ratchett is found stabbed to death in his compartment with the door locked from the inside. Poirot has to find the killer among the passengers trapped on board with him.
Christie built the plot on the Lindbergh kidnapping, which was in the headlines as she wrote, though she changed the names. Ludwig cut the book’s 12 suspects to eight to fit the stage.
Because the whole play happens aboard the train, Helms is building the illusion with periaktoi, rotating three-sided panels painted with a different scene on each face. Six panels give the show three settings, turning from a restaurant to the train’s exterior to the dining car before moving aside for the sleeping car.
Stagehands dressed as porters will make those changes in front of the audience. Scott Ramos is handling sound effects and voiceovers, including narration for the opening and the flashback scenes.
Twin Lakes Playhouse has produced community theater in Mountain Home since 1971, when founder George Smith held rehearsals in members’ garages. The all-volunteer group stages five shows a year, and this is its 55th season.
The production is sponsored by Dauna Powell of Peglar Real Estate and by Josselyn Obregon. It is presented by special arrangement with Concord Theatricals.
Tickets are available at tlpmh.org or by calling the box office at 870-424-0444.
