Letitia Blacklock is the Lady of The House at Little Paddocks, in the village of Chipping Cleghorn. Bunny, Letitia’s childhood friend, lives there along with familial twins: Emma and Pip. Strangely enough, the local newspaper carries an item announcing a murder at their address, at exactly 6:30 PM. (Could it be Papa John’s?) Initially they dismiss this as a bad joke, but it attracts the attention of neighbors, friends, the intrigued and the curious. Expected, yet unexpectedly, the lights go out, at the precise moment. Two gunshots are heard, and the unsuccessful assassin’s been assassinated. Miss Marple happens to be staying at a Health Spa in an adjoining town. She and Inspector Craddock will resolve this baffling state of affairs.
Agatha Christie (in addition to numerous novels) has written several stage plays as well. Murder is Announced was adapted for the stage by Leslie Darbon. One of the pleasures of Christie’s narratives are the careful, involved backstories of each character. How they intersect with one another. Often it feels like the parlor game: Six Degrees of Separation. Charlie plays bingo with Sally who works with Velma who’s the niece of Wallace, etc. It might sometimes feel labyrinthine, but Christie makes it work. As we might suspect, each character could resort to chicanery. Here are appropriated identities, unseen characters as connective tissue, a relative nobody knew was dead, and the facility of social networking.
The cast, directors (Rachael Lindley and Lorna Woodford) and crew at The Richardson Theatre Centre, are in sync with Agatha Christie, and her cunning dramas. They deserve accolades for untying the knots alone. They seem to thrive on Christie’s absorbing mix of menace, oblique humor, and the serpent swallowing its own tail. Lindley and Woodford orchestrate text and performance better than The New York Philharmonic.
Standouts in this remarkable cast include: Robin Liesenfelt as the legendary Miss Marple, who could fall down a staircase, and not miss a single detail. Adam Koch as the opinionated, flirtatious Edmund Swettinham. Donna MacNamara as Letitia Blacklock, who must extinguish one fire, after another. Ivy Opdyke as the long-suffering, neurotic Bunny. And Jed Carr and Elise Stuart, as the squabbling, devious “twins.” A special nod to Kit Philips as the Anti-Communist, territorial: Mitzi.
The Richardson Theatre Centre staged A Murder is Announced from: February 6th-March 1st, 2026. 518 West Arapaho road, Suite113, Richardson, Texas, 75080. 972-699-1130