3Stages Presents THE 39 STEPS, 10/23-24

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, 2012 at 7:30 pm and Wednesday, October 24, 2012 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 www.threestages.net or from Three Stages Ticket Office at 916-608-6888 from 10 am to 6 pm, 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 on June 15 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).