Different Stages Runs Agatha Christie’s SPIDER'S WEB Until 7/24

Different Stages runs Agatha Christie's SPIDER'S WEB through July 24th. The production opened on July 2nd and is being performed at the Vortex on 2307 Manor Road. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. There is an added performance on Wednesday, July 21 at 8 p.m. Tickets are Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, and $30.

Agatha Christie's SPIDER'S WEB is about Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, and her habit of daydreaming, where she ponders, "Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library"? Unfortunately, Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the drawing room of her house. It becomes necessary to dispose of the body before her husband comes home with an important foreign politician, so Clarissa persuades her three houseguests to become accessories and accomplices. It seems that the murdered man was not unknown to certain members of the house party, and the search begins for the murderer and the motive, while at the same time trying to persuade a police inspector that there has been no murder at all.

Co-directed by Jeanette Bellemeur (assistant director and designer with Different Stages) and T.J. Moreno (actor, stage manager and assistant director with Different Stages) SPIDER'S WEB features Nikki Zook (Five Women Wearing the Same Dress), Bobbie Oliver (The Skin of Our Teeth), Craig Kanne (Laughter on the 23rd Floor), Tyler Jones (How the Other Half Loves), Julie Winston Thomas (Little Murders), Trey Deason and Sam Damon (An Inspector Calls) and Angela Loftus (Good Things). Also in the cast are TJ Jolley, Larry Oliver, and David Young.

Different Stages was founded in 1980 as Small Potatoes Theatrical Company. Lucy Lister, Angero Holt, and Norman E. Blumensaadt incorporated it as a nonprofit organization under its present name in 1984. From its inception, the theatre has been committed to the performance not only of famous plays but also of lesser-known works. Plays by Shakespeare, Molière, Shaw, and O'Neill have been recurring favorites; but Different Stages has also introduced Austin audiences to the works of Caryl Churchill, Jane Martin, Keith Reddin, Charles Ludlum, Constance Congdon, Marlane Meyer, Pierre Marivaux, and Edit Villarreal.

The company has produced almost 80 plays, ranging from romantic to neo-classic to realistic to surrealistic. It has staged several world premieres--four translations by Austin scholars, including one by Professor Douglass Parker, and original scripts by Austin playwrights Tom White and Ann Ciccolella. More information can be found at www.main.org/diffstages/.

Photo Credit: Brett Brookshire; (L-R) Tyler Jones, Nikki Zook, Craig Kanne