Samuel French Announces Expanded Agatha Christie Play Collection

Samuel French, the world's premier theatrical publishing and licensing company, is pleased to announce the addition of thirteen new plays to the Agatha Christie Collection. Now including 25 titles, the Collection is a unique set of plays all written by or with the direct involvement of the famous mystery writer and dramatist.

In addition to her work as a novelist, Agatha Christie's playwriting career spanned 42 years, from the premiere of her first play in 1930 (Black Coffee) to the last she was personally involved with in 1972 (Fiddlers Three). The new and existing plays now making up the Collection were chosen after a two-year research project involving a review of all Christie plays in circulation, revisiting original manuscripts, and remastering existing plays to make them performance ready for the 21st century whilst ensuring they stay as close as possible to Agatha Christie's original vision. The breadth and depth of the Collection offers something for a range of producing organizations and audiences.

James Prichard, Chairman and CEO of Agatha Christie Ltd. and great grandson of Agatha Christie, said "As they have also proved in novels, television, film and radio, my great grandmother's plays and stories continue to engage great performers and directors today."

These new and revised titles join the Agatha Christie plays that are among the most popular in the Samuel French catalog including And Then There Were None, Witness For The Prosecution, and The Mousetrap, the longest running show on the West End.

Among the 13 new titles appearing in this expanded collection, currently available as a pre-publication manuscript:

• Akhnaton - Christie's only epic historical drama, unlike any of her other written plays. Set in Ancient Egypt and written around the same time as Death on the Nile.
• The Secret of Chimneys - Written in 1931, adapted from her novel of the same name (the original stage play was called Chimneys). The play was unproduced in its day and virtually forgotten. The play's world premiere was at the Vertigo Theatre in Calgary, Canada in 2003 when the artistic director John-Paul Fischback "discovered" the manuscript deposited at The British Library over 70 years earlier.
• A Daughter's A Daughter -The original novel was written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, but the play itself was written and originally billed as by Agatha Christie. It is a melodrama rather than a stage mystery.
• Murder in the Studio - A collection of Christie's radio plays Personal Call, Yellow Iris, and Butter in a Lordly Dish. Yellow Iris is one of the few plays to feature Christie's famous detective, Hercule Poirot.
• The Wasp's Nest - Christie's first (and only personally) adapted teleplay script (from 1937).
• Towards Zero and Towards Zero (Outdoor) - Both adapted from the same novel, the traditional version was produced in 1956. Ten years earlier, the outdoor version is the only play Agatha Christie ever wrote under commission (for The Shuberts in 1945). The outdoor version was uncovered by Julius Green when writing his 2015 book, Agatha Christie: A Life in Theatre.

For more information or to request rights, please contact a Samuel French Licensing Representative at (866)598-8449 or visit https://samfren.ch/agathachristie.

To post a comment, you must register and login.