Virginia Theatre Festival to Present 'The 39 Steps'

The Virginia Theatre Festival is wrapping up its 50th Anniversary season with the two-time-Tony Award-winning, hilarious whodunit The 39 Steps which opens on July 25. 

Adapted by Patrick Barlow from the classic film by iconic thrill master Alfred Hitchcock, The 39 Steps features four actors playing more than 150 characters in a feat of herculean hilarity and hair-pin turns. Director Nicolas Minas makes his VTF debut, conducting a delightfully chaotic comedic symphony while telling the story of Richard Hannay, whose chance encounter with an ill-fated beautiful spy sends him into the bullseye of a dangerous international crime ring. The result is a stream of revelations, romance, quick changes, and laughs delivered at a delightfully dizzying pace. 

The 39 Steps will be performed at the Ruth Caplin Theatre from July 25-August 4.

The production is not Minas’s maiden voyage with the play, nor with a theatre’s 50th anniversary. He directed a production of it in 2014 during the Cape Fear Regional Theatre’s golden anniversary season. The minute he stepped foot in the Ruth Caplin Theatre, which features a thrust stage, during a production team visit in April, Minas knew this would be a whole different ballgame. 

“The 39 Steps has a sort of magical theatricality about it,” Minas said, “which requires hiding things and revealing things. So, in a theater like this, where the audience is literally all around you, there is a whole new set of challenges. We had to reimagine how we were going to do everything.”

One challenge in a play like this, he said, is to balance the duality of its madcap hilarity and its classic thriller story. “This is both a comedy and a thriller,” Minas said, “and we are really leaning into both sides of this.”

Another is how to capture the classic Hitchcockian moments in a theater setting. “I come from a film background, so capturing the Alfred Hitchcock of this is important to me. How do you put that film noir style on a stage? How do you do a train chase that feels like a train chase, or any of these incredible things that are thrown to us in this script? We are basically attempting the impossible on stage. We are not talking huge sets here; we are basically using the types of things you would find around a theatre and deciding how we use the space to accomplish these things.”

The answers do not come from the script, Minas said. “There is very little in terms of how we do what we need to do. Barlow basically says, ‘Take what is useful to you and leave what is not.’” The dialogue, he added, taken largely from the film, becomes a jumping off point for imagination. 

Minas and his creative team have been working for months building the world of the play and creating a sandbox in which the actors can play. “It has been so fun to build in all of these theatrical events,” he said, “especially since we have a cast that is so naturally funny.” Of course, funny is just half the challenge in a play that requires actors to stretch the boundaries of creativity, athleticism, and endurance. “I am very interested in actors and virtuosic performances,” Minas said, adding that there are no shortages of those in this talented cast, including with Mollie Downes, who plays all the women Hannay comes across, and with the show’s clown characters, played by Anna Faye Lieberman and Blake Segal. “They play multitudes of roles, covering a wide range of places, ages, and types,” Minas said. “There is one sequence where they play seven different characters in the course of one minute, without ever leaving the stage.”

Leaving the stage is a luxury barely afforded to actor Woodrow Proctor during the entire play as he is literally and figuratively on the run as he portrays Richard Hannay.

“I feel really fortunate,” Minas said. “I could not ask for a better cast for this show,” Minas said.

The play serves as a sort of love letter to the power, and the potential of theatre, he said. “How many times do you get to go to the theatre and experience a comedic film noir-style caper adventure?”

The 39 Steps is presented in arrangement with Fiery Angel Limited. The 39 Steps is adapted by Patrick Barlow, from the novel by John Buchan, from the movie by Alfred Hitchcock, licensed by ITV Global Entertainment Limited, and an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon. The 39 Steps is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com 

Casting by Zee Casting / Andrea Zee. 

The Virginia Theatre Festival is a program of the University of Virginia, with support from the Office of the Executive Vice President and the Provost, Vice Provost for the Arts, The Caplin Foundation, The Thomas and Carolyn Witt Foundation, College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Department of Drama. The 2024 Virginia Theatre Festival is also supported by a generous grant from The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

The 39 Steps is presented by CBS19 News and supported by Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport.

VTF donors provide essential support to the organization, while enjoying exclusive benefits like invitations to special events, behind-the-scenes access, and more. For more information on ways to support the upcoming season, visit virginiatheatrefestival.org/support.

To learn more about the Virginia Theatre Festival and its 50th anniversary season, visit virginiatheatrefestival.org.