Bluefield, VA – The Bluefield University Department of Theatre will present the Tony Award-winning comedy thriller The 39 Steps in Harman Chapel Auditorium on the Bluefield University campus during the 2021 Homecoming and Family Weekend, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, October 21-23 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, October 24, at 3:00 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students and senior adults. Bluefield University students, faculty, and staff are free.
The 2005 stage play by Patrick Barlow is based on the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film and the 1915 John Buchan spy novel of the same name. In this irreverently funny spoof of Hitchcock and espionage thrillers, Richard Hannay, a jaded Canadian living in pre-World War II London, encounters the mysterious and sultry Annabella Schmidt at a music hall on the West End and is inexorably drawn into her web of mystery and intrigue. When Frau Schmidt turns up dead in Hannay’s flat, the hero sets off on a frantic trek across the Scottish moors trying to stay a step ahead of the police while he discovers the secret that killed the German femme fatale and uncovers the mystery of the secret organization The 39 Steps. Along the way, Hannay meets a rogue’s gallery of colorful ne’er-do-wells and shady figures in a tongue-in-cheek thriller that the New York Times called an, “absurdly enjoyable, gleefully theatrical riff on Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film.”
Bluefield University’s production of the play features Brian Fisher in the role of the world-weary Hannay. He is joined by an ensemble of six other performers who play all of the myriad supporting characters in the play at breakneck speed. Included in the cast are current BU theatre students; Kirsten Gilbert, Noah Jennings, and General Smith as well as BU alumna Sarah Minnix Vaughn and local high school students Noah Monique and Josiah Hicks. The play is directed by Bluefield University theatre faculty Charles M. Reese and Rebecca McCoy-Reese.
Seating for this production will be limited due to ongoing Covid protocols. Attendees will be requested to wear a mask if they have not been vaccinated. For more information or to make reservations email [email protected] or call 276-326-4244.