Broadway Palm's new show: It's not a musical, but a murder mystery classic
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It’s been more than 25 years since Broadway Palm put anything but musicals on its main stage.
But that changes this week with the classic Agatha Christie mystery “Murder on the Orient Express.”
No one sings.
No one dances.
It’s just a straight-up murder mystery with iconic detective Hercule Poirot on the case after an American business tycoon is found dead on a passenger train.
The show was already an unexpected hit at Broadway Palm’s sister theater, The Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Now owner Will Prather hopes for a repeat performance at his Fort Myers dinner theater.
“It was a huge hit show and our most successful winter show in a long time (at the Dutch Apple)…” Prather says. “Nearly every performance was sold out!”
A classic murder mystery on the Broadway Palm stage
In Christie’s original 1937 novel, famous Belgian detective Poirot’s return trip from the Middle East to London is interrupted when his train gets stranded in deep snow. Then tycoon Samuel Edward Ratchett turns up dead ― stabbed a dozen times in his locked compartment. Poirot's task: Figure out which passenger did the deed before he or she strikes again.
The story has been adapted multiple times for TV and movies, including a 2017 film starring Kenneth Branagh as Poirot and Johnny Depp as Ratchett.
Broadway Palm’s stage version was adapted by popular playwright Ken Ludwig, best known for comedies such as “Lend Me a Tenor” and “Crazy For You.” The mystery opens the dinner theater's 2023-24 season.
Director Dean Sobon says Ludwig adds extra comedic touches to the story, and Sobon always looks for humor in everything he directs, too.
The result: A suspenseful, well-written story designed to keep audiences guessing whodunnit. But with some laughs, too.
“It flows really well,” Sobon says.
Playing Agatha Christie's iconic detective Poirot
To prepare for his role as Poirot, actor Frank Hughes re-read the classic novel. “It’s one of my favorites from high school," he says.
He also studied David Suchet’s long run as Poirot in the BBC TV series “Agatha Christie’s Poirot.”
“Poirot, he’s really a mystery,” Hughes says. “He’s been portrayed so many different ways.”
Hughes took things other actors have done and then brought his own twists to the character, he says. He compares Poirot to the quirky, OCD detective Adrian Monk on the TV comedy-drama “Monk.”
“He’s a little uppity, but he’s not,” Hughes says. “He’s all over the place and thinking about things. …
"He’ll be talking to somebody, but he’s thinking about the next three things down the line.”
A new hunger for murder mysteries
Broadway Palm used to do straight plays on its main stage in the ‘90s, Prather says, but that practice stopped when they opened their smaller, black-box theater the Off Broadway Palm Theatre in 1996.
Recently, though, audiences seem to have more interest in mysteries and interactive shows, he says. “We thought Agatha Christie's classic ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ would be the perfect show to be our first non-musical back on the mainstage in over two decades.”
Sure, audiences love Broadway Palm’s musicals. But “Murder on the Orient Express” isn’t as big of a financial risk as you’d think, Prather says.
The cast is smaller, and you don’t have to hire live musicians to play in the pit. Plus the royalties and overall cost of production are less, including the existing costumes and set from the previous production.
Plus Prather hopes the show attracts new people to the Fort Myers theater. “Non-musicals bring in a new and different audience than our traditional musical-theater audiences,” he says, “and we add new customers by producing different shows.”
If the show does well, he says, Broadway Palm will likely do more straight plays in the future, too.
“Murder on the Orient Express” opens Aug. 18 and continues through Sept. 16. Tickets are $56-$80.
For more information, call 278-4422 or visit broadwaypalm.com.
— Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. For news tips or other entertainment-related matters, call him at 239-335-0368 (for tickets to shows, call the venue) or email him at crunnells@gannett.com. You can also connect with him on Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), X (formerly Twitter) (@charlesrunnells), Threads (@crunnells1) and Instagram (@crunnells1).
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Murder on the Orient Express: Classic mystery rolls into Fort Myers
