Bristol Riverside Theatre to Present DEATHTRAP, Beginning 1/29

Bristol Riverside Theatre opens the New Year with the fun and sinister Deathtrap by Ira Levin, running January 29-February 24. Directed by Richard Edelman, the cast includes BRT favorites Keith Baker, Barbara McCulloh and Jo Twiss, joined by Mordecai Lawner and Robert Ross.

Previews begin Tuesday, January 29 with opening night on Thursday, January 31. Performances run Tuesday through Sunday until February 24. Tickets start at $30, with discounts for students, groups and military personnel. Tickets are available by visitingbrtstage.org or calling the BRT Box Office at 215-785-0100. Bristol Riverside Theatre is located at 120 Radcliffe Street in Bristol, PA.

To make Sidney's writing slump all the more painful, Clifford, one of his students, has written the perfect suspense play. Out of his desperate desire to once again be the toast of Broadway, Sidney and his wife cook up an almost unthinkable scheme. They'll lure the would-be playwright to their home, kill him, and market the sure-fire script as Sidney's own. But shortly after Clifford arrives, it's clear that things are not what they seem!

Nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play, Deathtrap holds the record for the longest running comedy-thriller on Broadway, enjoying a four-year run with over 1800 performances. Deathtrap also earned a second Edgar Award for playwright Ira Levin. It was adapted into a film starring Christopher Reeve, Michael Caine and Dyan Cannon in 1982.

"This timeless classic - by turns droll and macabre - is sure to delight our audiences, with its edge-of-your-seat plot twists," said BRT's Artistic Director Keith Baker. "In Deathtrap, Levin has taken the basic component of thrillers and horror stories - murder, deceit, innocent dialogue with hidden sinister meanings - and continuously twisted and rearranged the pieces to great theatrical effect."

Richard Edelman (Director) returns to BRT where he last directed The Caine Mutiny Court Martial and Kiss Me Kate. He has had a varied career as a producer, actor and director in theater and opera companies in this country and abroad including the early days of the Living Theatre, Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre and the Williamstown Playhouse in Massachusetts. He has often acted in and directed several Shakespeare productions at such venues as the San Diego Shakespeare Festival and London's Mermaid Theater. In a parallel career as an educator, he was the artistic director of the Theater Arts Department at Penn State where he established professional performance programs in acting and directing. An assistant to Sanford Meisner at The Neighborhood Playhouse, he was also a full professor in the theater departments of Amherst College and Boston University and an Adjunct Professor at Harvard. For many years he directed at the renowned Sandglass Puppet Theatre where his productions have won many international awards.

Keith Baker (Sidney Bruhl) has also appeared in BRT productions of A Raw Space, Barrymore, Old Wicked Songs, Defiance,Proof, Hamlet, A Little Night Music, Arsenic and Old Lace, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. Elsewhere, recently, he took over the role of Jeeves in the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn musical By Jeeves at the Goodspeed Opera House and appeared on TV in two episodes of Stella for Comedy Central. Baker has been nominated eleven times for the prestigious Carbonell Awards, for which he was twice the recipient for Best Actor. He has directed more than 40 productions for BRT including Chicago (nominated for six Barrymore Awards), The Balkan Women (winner of a Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play), The Dresser (nominated for a Barrymore Award for Best Director of a Play) and Dear World (nominated for three Barrymore Awards). Prior to coming to BRT, Baker was Artistic Director for the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival and the Florida Repertory Theatre.