Theatre In The Round Players To Present New Adaptation Of Agatha Christie’s THE MURDER ON THE LINKS

Theatre in the Round Players (TRP) will present USA Today bestselling author Kate Danley’s new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s THE MURDER ON THE LINKS, running November 21–December 21, 2025 at Theatre in the Round. Tickets are available through the company’s website.

This production marks the second collaboration between Danley and TRP following their 2022 staging of THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, which introduced Minneapolis audiences to a new theatrical approach to Christie’s detective partners Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings. Danley credits that earlier partnership as the source of her return to Christie’s work. “What began as an exploration in adaptation during lockdown became a world that director Linda Paulsen and I created together. The voices of the actors and the vision of the artistic team filled my head as I poured through Agatha's pages this time.”

In shaping the new adaptation, Danley and director Linda Paulsen continued the collaborative process that defined their previous work. Through table readings, script analysis, and iterative rewriting, they focused on retaining the human insight that underpins Christie’s storytelling. Danley described the experience as a learning process, saying, “My own craft has improved by leaps and bounds since studying her brushstrokes. But more than anything, I wanted to make sure I preserved the ‘her’ in her stories.”

The adaptation required significant compression of the source material. “To bring the play in at two-plus hours, I had to cut 50,000 words – an entire novel’s worth,” Danley said. “And because Christie was so deliberate in her placement, removing an innocuous sentence in chapter 25 could unravel the entire book.” She added that she believes the script remains faithful to both the mystery and its emotional foundation: “I think that anyone who loves this book will walk out of the theatre feeling seen.”

Danley noted that contemporary audiences have renewed their interest in the mystery genre, citing titles such as Knives Out and Only Murders in the Building. “We live in a world where so much is spoon-fed to us,” she said. “But the human mind is built for problem-solving, and mysteries invite us to think. What makes Agatha Christie so especially satisfying is that all of the clues are presented, yet she still manages to surprise us. Anyone can give you twisty plot points, but she figured out how to wield the human spirit.”

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