Friday, October 5, 2012

Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps Comes to Three Stages

Alfred Hitchcock's award-winning The 39 Steps is Broadway's longest-running comedy thriller. Winner of two Tony and Drama Desk Awards and London’s Oliver Award for Best New Comedy, The 39 Steps is packed with laughs, thrills and over 150 unique characters—performed by four actors—and it will take the stage at Three Stages for three shows on October 23-24.

ALFRED HITCHOCK’S THE 39 STEPS will perform in Three Stages on Tuesday, October 23,  at 7:30 p.m. and Wednesday, October 24,  for two shows,  2 pm & 7:30 pm. Tickets are $29-$45, with Premium tickets available for $55; there is a 10% Discount on Wednesday afternoon single tickets. Tickets may be purchased online at threestages.net or from Three Stages Ticket Office at 916-608-6888 from 10 am to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and two hours before show time. Three Stages is located on the west side of Folsom Lake College campus in Folsom, CA, facing East Bidwell Street.

The 39 Steps follows a man with a boring life as he meets a woman with a thick accent who says she's a spy. When he takes her home, she is murdered. Soon after, a mysterious organization called "The 39 Steps" is hot on the man's trail in a nationwide manhunt. A “gleefully theatrical riff on the film… fast and frothy…theater at its finest” (New York Times).

The play's concept calls for the entirety of the 1935 adventure film The 39 Steps to be performed nearly verbatim onstage, but with a cast of four. One actor plays the hero, Richard Hannay, an actress plays the three women whom he has romantic entanglements with, and two other actors play every other character in the show: heroes, villains, men, women, children and even the occasional inanimate object. This often requires lighting fast quick changes and occasionally for them to play multiple characters at once. Thus the film's serious spy story is played mainly for laughs, and the script is full of allusions to (and puns on the titles of) other Alfred Hitchcock films, including Rear Window, Psycho and North by Northwest. “The great fun of The 39 Steps is its invention” (City Beat).

The play won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy in 2007 and the What's On Stage Award for Best Comedy 2007. The 2008 Roundabout Broadway production won the 2008 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience and Outstanding Lighting Design (Kevin Adams). It won two Tony Awards in 2008 for Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design. It was nominated for four other Tonys: Best Play, Best Direction of a Play (Maria Aitken), Best Scenic Design of a Play (Peter McKintosh) and Best Costume Design of a Play (Peter McKintosh).

Three Stages: Inspire, Include, Instruct!
Three Stages at Folsom Lake College presents touring artists from around the world; partners with the best regional arts organizations, and supports productions by FLC students and faculty. Three Stages at Folsom Lake College is a $50 million performing and visual arts center that opened in February 2011. Located on the campus, Three Stages includes three intimate performance venues (850, 200, 100 seats), an art gallery, a recording studio, ample rehearsal and classroom space, a full service ticket office plus all the amenities of a state-of-the-art performance venue. Parking is free on weekends and for those buying tickets in advance.

A renaming of Three Stages is currently under way.  The new name, Harris Center for the Arts, honors Dr. Brice Harris, Chancellor Emeritus of the Los Rios Community College District, for his many contributions to the Capital Region, including providing the vision and leadership that lead to the opening of this regional arts center.

Blog Post information and picture courtesy Three Stages.


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