The 39 Steps Ends Run at Wabash

If you’re tired of being cooped-up because of COVID and just want to spend two hours laughing hysterically, get tickets for the Wabash Theater Department’s production of The 39 Steps, which opens February 23 and runs through the 26th with performances at 8 p.m. each evening.

Tickets are free and can be reserved through the Fine Arts Center Box Office.

The 39 Steps is a zippy, rollicking adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s serious 1935 film that weaves in plenty of wit and whimsy, fast-paced action, and lots of laughs. Unlike Hitchcock’s movie, which featured dozens of actors, the stage version squeezes the cast down to four.

Rob Johansen, who has appeared on the Wabash stage and backstage, is the play’s visiting director. He was last seen on stage in Biloxi Blues in 2019, and has also taught workshops on movement and stage combat and choreography, but in real life he plays a professional actor working across the Midwest.

“Wabash wanted me to teach to my strengths: comedy, farce, and physical comedy,” Johansen told The Bachelor. “And we thought this play would be a great vehicle for those things… It’s very physical. It’s very rigorous. And I think it’s phenomenal training for an actor.”

A mostly bare stage with a few moving set pieces and well-used trunks, ladders, window frames, and moving doors provide all the space for the actors to channel their talents into exaggerated movements.

Logan 正规赌钱软件appilbaker, coming off his performance in the lead role of Gregory in last fall’s production of The Amateurs, stars as Richard Hannay, a run-of-the-mill guy living a pretty boring life until he meets Anabella, who claims she is a spy who has uncovered important military secrets. When she ends up dead – in Hannay’s house – a hilarious manhunt begins from London to the Scottish 正规赌钱软件applands.

Emilie Prince stars as Anabella Smith, while also playing two other women entangled by Hannay, Margaret and Pamela as he attempts to clear his name and uncover the spy network. Prince, a junior at DePauw majoring in English writing and Chinese, is making her Wabash stage debut.

The truly heavy lifting is done by Drew Johannes and Luke Fincher, known in the program as “Clown 1” and “Clown 2,&rd