The new stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express was a labor of love for writer Ken Ludwig and director Emily Mann. Read all about their process of bringing this classic whodunit to the stage.

Nearly all of Agatha Christie’s mysteries have a life outside of their existence as books.  The dramatic potential of many of her crime stories are well known by the Queen of Crime herself and by other playwrights.  While some of Christie’s plays are based on short stories or original ideas, over the course of her career, Christie dramatized several of her own novels for the stage. 

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEADMost Agatha Christie fans are aware that she wrote plays in addition to novels and short stories. The Mousetrap, Witness for the Prosecution, and And Then There Were None are the most famous and successful of her plays, but she wrote many more, some of which have never been published, and at least one has never been performed. Though some of her plays are original, most are adaptations of her previously released stories, some of which deviate substantially from her original work. From 1945 to 1960, Christie adapted four of her best novels featuring Poirot, and turned them into stage plays, none of which have Poirot as a character.

Several long-lost Christie plays are finally being made available to the general public– and to theater companies looking to put on Christie plays that have previously been seen by only a select few audiences.

With the release of expanded The Agatha Christie Collection, which features some plays that were unavailable to the general public for decades, actors have the opportunity to embrace some exciting and challenging new roles. 

Agatha Christie is well-known for writing for the page and the stage, but it is not common knowledge that she also wrote for radio and television as well. 

Discovering Agatha Christie’s lost manuscripts.