Take the Ride of a Lifetime at Asolo Rep

By Ryan G. Van Cleave

In 2011, Director Peter Amster was living in Miami with longtime partner (Tony Award-winning director Frank Galati), when Asolo Rep’s Producing Artistic Director, Michael Donald Edwards, called to ask if he was interested in directing at the theatre. Amster agreed and immediately fell in love with Asolo Rep and Sarasota. Within a year, the couple sold their Miami home and moved to Sarasota for good and, since then, Amster, now an Associate Artist at the theatre, has continued to direct one play each season at Asolo Rep. 

“They’re such a good partner for any production,” Amster says about working with Edwards and his team, as well as the top-notch costume shop, scene shop, production team and world-class designers. “It doesn’t get much better than this. You’d really have to go to Broadway to match the resources that Asolo Rep has.” The fact that the theatre has a partnership with the FSU/Asolo Conservatory MFA program that allows large casts to be filled out with talented graduate actors? That’s the cherry on top, he notes.

This year, those resources—and Amster’s directing efforts—are focused on bringing a fresh version of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express to the stage. Of course, it started as a novel, and has since been made into two fine movies and a BBC show. He wants to build on what those brought to the table and yet find ways to make it feel new, too.

“Agatha Christie started writing Murder in the Orient Express in the 1920s and continued until the 1930s,” he notes. “This was right after World War I, and Great Britain wasn’t the same place it was before. Everything was topsy turvy—they were all reaching for something, and Christie had her finger on the pulse of it.” What impresses him about the core story is how it was inspired by a massive worldwide event—the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby—as well as her own first journey on the Orient Express in 1928, and a blizzard near Turkey that marooned an Orient Express train in 1929 for nearly a week. Christie’s authorized diary also recounts how a later train ride home from her husband’s archaeological dig provided elements of the plot and even certain characters.

Amster believes the 1974 film—starring Albert Finney as Poirot, with Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, and Ingrid Bergman in supporting roles—was really about the adventure and romance of taking a cross-country train ride. “It had a cavalcade of stars,” he says. The 2015 Kenneth Brannagh movie, though, was far darker, being more about the serious issues and themes in play.

Amster hopes to blend the best of those performances in Asolo Rep’s new production, which was adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig, a two-time Tony-nominated playwright who’s known for his ability to use farce. “It’ll be a little sillier, have a little more twinkle, a few more winks, and more fun than the novel,” Amster adds. Plus, Ludwig brings both a deep seriousness and high sense of adventure to the story that comes together wonderfully on the stage.

The production features an original score by Greg Coffin, so it’s not just going to look cinematic, but it’s going to sound cinematic, too. While a playwright might suggest to use, say, Mahler, original music can be perfectly timed to match scene changes so there’s a seamless quality that can’t be replicated. “Sometimes the music bleeds over, or you don’t get to the best parts of it, and the internal cuts just get in the way,” Amster explains.

Amster’s Murder on the Orient Express will also incorporate video projections throughout the performance. “One of the things I see in all the adaptations and even in the original novel, is that the kidnapping of little Sandy Armstrong gets lost. It doesn’t get sustained,” he says. “Yet in this production, we’re going to have her presence all throughout, which should offer another level of emotional impact.”

One might wonder how Amster keeps up his interest and energy after being in the theater business for nearly five decades. His answer: “It’s the joy of being in the sandbox with other nice children.” He adds that “there’s a great sense of play and joy the first time we finally sit around the table, talk about it, and do our first read-through. While I’ve read the play dozens of times before that happens, all the characters sound alike me. To hear new voices? It’s so refreshing. That’s when it really becomes a play.”

Murder on the Orient Express plays in rotating repertory from January 8, 2020 through March 8, 2020. Come book your passage today for the train ride of a lifetime. 

For more information on Asolo Repertory Theatre or the 2019-2020 season, please visit www.asolorep.org or call the box office at 941.351.8000.