Following the sell-out world premiere of “Storming Heaven: The Musical,” West Virginia Public Theatre will conclude its 2019 summer season with Patrick Barlow’s stage adaptation of “The 39 Steps,” which has played in over 40 countries worldwide.
There will be five performances, opening on Wednesday and closing June 30. All performances will take place in the Gladys G. Davis Theatre at the WVU Creative Arts Center, with a start time of 7:30 p.m., except for Sunday’s performance, which begins at 2 p.m.
The run time is about 2 hours, including one intermission. “The 39 Steps” is open to all ages, but is recommended for ages 10 and up.
Tickets are $25, or $15 for children 17 and under or groups of 10 or more. Tickets are available for purchase online through Ticketmaster, by calling 293-SHOW, or at the CAC or Mountainlair box offices.
Adapted from the John Buchan novel and Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name, this Tony-, Drama Desk-, and Olivier-award-winning comedy features a cast of four playing nearly 50 characters.
Broadway veteran Tim McGeever plays Richard Hannay, an English bachelor who finds himself unwittingly at the center of an international intrigue. Nancy McNulty plays a mysterious German spy, a meek Scottish housewife and an English ingenue determined to get to the bottom of the plot. And Liam Michael Holton and Jared Munson play… everyone else.
From villains to victims to policemen to partygoers, the two “clowns” spend the show switching between characters and accents and wearing a multitude of hats — literally and figuratively.
Directed by Lee Blair, “The 39 Steps” is what you get when you mix Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python, a few secret agents (and double agents), handcuffs, ham sandwiches and some good old-fashioned romance.
