Deathtrap

by Ira Levin
 
poster for Deathtrap

 

A desperate playwright who hasn’t had a hit in years.  A rich wife with a heart condition. An ambitious, yet idolizing, student. A dead-on Dutch psychic seeking fame and fortune on the talk-show circuit. A trusted friend with mysterious motives. An old house full of medieval weaponry. A dark and stormy night. These eerie elements add up to Broadway’s longest-running comedy-thriller: Ira Levin’s Deathtrap.

Sidney Bruhl, a successful veteran writer, stuck with writer’s block (reduced to living off his wife Myra’s money for years now), uses naïve protégé Clifford Anderson to jumpstart his stalled career. Or does he? The plot is more twisted than the characters it portrays. Fueled by macabre comic touches and unmatched suspense, this classic will take you on an unforgettable ride. Is anyone what he or she appears? Will anyone be left standing at the end of the play?

Deathtrap twists and turns, confounds all expectations, shocks, and provides several spine-tingling moments when audiences levitate from their seats and come down screaming. Edgar-Award winning Ira Levin, acclaimed author of classic suspense novels Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives and The Boys from Brazil has shot Deathtrap’s dark doings through with rapier sharp wit and the blackest of humors. He skillfully reinvents every suspenseful trick of the thriller writer’s trade to create an unforgettable evening of deliciously devilish theatrical mayhem.

Megan Callahan, seen at LNT in last season’s The Importance of Being Earnest, directs Deathtrap with an eye toward its haunting theatricality. The superb production team brings together LNT’s most effective designers: scenic wizard Donna Stafford (Miracle Worker, Henry V); leading light John Forbes (Belle of Amherst); and costume & sound maven Shawn Sturdevant (Miracle Worker, Mockingbird), who, with the assistance of technical director Robyn Osiecki and stage manager Tara Lee Downs, put the thrill in this thriller!feet stick out of a rolled-up rug

Actors Equity Association members John D. Alexander is the panicked, now near penniless playwright Bruhl, and Maura O’Brien plays psychic ‘Helga Ten Dorp’. Alexander was seen in LNT’s Miracle Worker, Bully, and The Tempest, and O’Brien’s turns in Macbeth, Lost in Yonkers, and Laughing Wild laid the foundation for prescient eccentric Helga. Elizabeth Wilcox (STONE) is Sidney’s fragile wife, ‘Myra’ and Larry Lambeth (Mockingbird, Importance of Being Earnest), is the Bruhls’ loyal legal-eagle, ‘Porter Milgrim’. Chris Corporandy (Primary Stages, Irish Classical Theatre, and The Public) joins Lost Nation Theater for the first time as ‘Clifford Anderson,’ the eager protégé.

June 25-July 12
Please note: The Friday, July 3 performance is at 2pm to make room for Montpelier’s Independence Parade.
Buy tickets online up to 24 hours before the performance.

2009 Main Stage Curtain Times:

7pm Thursdays & Sundays (except final Sunday, curtain at 2pm)

8pm Fridays & Saturdays

2pm Saturday Matinee (the first Saturday of each run)

Come early for the best choice of seats!

Box Office: 802.229.0492
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