Though renowned for crime fiction like Murder on the Orient Express, author Agatha Christie didn’t restrict herself to the printed page. In 1952, she penned The Mousetrap, a play about a group of snowbound cabin occupants who must discover which one is a murderer.
Like a book that’s never gone out of print, The Mousetrap has hardly ever paused, running in London for the past 70 years and setting a Guinness World Record for the world’s longest-running play. Now, it’s headed to Broadway.
According to Broadway World, the American version of The Mousetrap will be helmed by its UK producer Adam Spiegel and New York producer Kevin McCollum. The latter has won Tonys for his work on Rent, Avenue Q, and In the Heights. In a statement, Spiegel joked that the play has had “the longest out of town tryout in history.”
Christie originally wrote The Mousetrap based on her radio play Three Blind Mice, which she wrote at the behest of Queen Mary in 1947: the monarch had said she would enjoy a new Christie story as a birthday present. When the BBC asked, Christie obliged. She also turned it into a short story.
Aside from a COVID-19 interruption in 2020 and 2021, it’s run continuously, clocking nearly 30,000 performances. Cast members have (obviously) varied over the years, but there’s been one constant: the voice of actor Deryck Guyler, who can be heard reading a radio bulletin.
No cast has been announced for the Broadway version. It’s expected to debut sometime in 2023.
[h/t Broadway World]
Jake Rossen
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