Designers’ Notes

AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

COSTUME DESIGNER’S NOTES

BY DEVON PAINTER It is an absolute pleasure to breathe life into Agatha Christie’s dramatic and stylish people on the stage. Murder on the Orient Express is an especially lush story, set in an exotic location and a very stylish bygone world. The costume design presents how each character wishes to be perceived, using a high style appearance as a foil to deceive.

COMPOSER’S NOTES

BY MICHAEL KECK Every piece of music begins as an experiment, as well as an adventure I look forward to with absolutely no idea where the score will land. I enjoy the mystery of creativity, imagining how the author’s text develops in rehearsals into a fully staged production. Clues provided by the playwright merge with wisdom from the creative team to yield the first sketch, a demo to share with the director and her team. Ideas always require refinement, and eventually we hit the sweet spot with music that serves as a key link between the drama and the audience. The map for this particular adventure includes two previous productions that I worked on with director Risa Brainin: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2012) and Holmes and Watson (2018), murder mysteries infused with the romanticism of the 19th century. I’m excited and grateful for this opportunity at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park with Risa for this production of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.

AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

SET DESIGNER’S NOTE

BY ROBERT KOHARCHIK As a fan of Agatha Christie, designing the set for Murder on the Orient Express was both thrilling and challenging. Inspired by images of the Orient Express and by the Art Deco style, the set design for this production endeavors to capture the opulence of the period while providing fl uid movement from one train car to the next as we watch one of Christie’s most memorable characters solve the case.