Tag: Agatha Christie

A Treat of a Retreat, with LEAP

With the fall rapidly approaching, LEAP Ambassadors gathered together–along with alumni and friends–for some entertainment, food, and planning. It was our quarterly(ish) get together with alumni for theater entertainment and a meal, combined with our planning retreat. And when the Houston Post Market and the Alley Theatre are involved, you know it’s going to be fun.

As has become something of a tradition, we began at the Houston Post Market, a suggestion once made by Bryan Phillips (thank you!), which offers something for everyone and a great view from the top. The food hall offers more than 10 types of ethnic foods, plus other ice-cream, coffee, and juices. Orders tended to cluster among the Italian, West African, and Mexican options, and no one was disappointed.

Meanwhile, we also had the opportunity to spend times with “friends of LEAP,” such as Maggie Betancourt, Katherine Burnett, and Victoria Medrano (and Victoria’s mom, Sandra), and the chance to catch up with alumni Victoria McClendon (and her amiable fiancée Nick Cardenas), newly-minted alumna Morgan Robertson (and her long-suffering boyfriend Tommy Ward).

Professor Yawn even brought a gift for Morgan, who in her years in LEAP, distinguished herself as a klutz of the first order, often impersonating a pinball, bumping into angle, corner, wall, or furniture item within a stride’s reach. She is safer now, thanks to a bright yellow wrist-band reading “Fall Risk.”

This should alert safety personnel that an emergency is imminent, and it should warn passersby to give wide berth, for Morgan’s safety and their own.

After making Morgan feel at home, as though she had never left the LEAP fold, we headed off to the ostensible main attraction, our annual attendance at the Alley’s “Summer Chills,” where our group was joined by alums Bianca Saldierna and Quinn Kobrin and his fiancée, Jessica Madry. With an assist from the Alley’s always-helpful Laura Perez, we had 17 tickets for “And Then There Were None,” a suspenseful, fun, and–at times, frightening–adaption of the Agatha Christie classic.

The plot is familiar, but largely because Christie’s work has spawned so many conceptual copy-cats.

Ten people are invited to an isolated island under false pretenses, and then they are killed off one-by-one until “there were none.” The play, a type of locked-room mystery, is a technical masterpiece, and the Alley’s professional staff did a great job of pulling it off with freshness and humor and with a moody atmosphere that occasionally raised goosebumps.

And while the play was wonderful, the real treat was spending time with new students, the LEAP Ambassadors, and alumni. In many respects, these outings embody the LEAP approach to learning–fun, education, and long-term relationships rolled into one event.

It is a formula we hope to repeat throughout the fall–er, autumn (sorry, Morgan)–and, indeed, for many autumns to come.

Sleuthing from the Cheap Seats: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

It was a sunny and bright day, but murder was in the air. We were at the Alley Theatre, and its cast was performing Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.”

It was a nice mix of people, LEAP Ambassadors, LEAP alumni, and “friends of LEAP” together for an enjoyable afternoon. With lunch at Post Houston, a new favorite recommended by LEAP alum Will Phillips, we caught up, talked about classes, and explored food from multiple continents.

But we had come to Houston for the play, and it was something of a process to actually see the play. Many of us had read the book, with at least half of us stopping before the end so as to not spoil the “whodunit” aspect of the performance. In July, we attended a Murder by the Book presentation by Mark Shanahan, the play’s director, a presentation that left us even more excited.

Unfortunately, when we drove to our scheduled performance, the Alley had to cancel the showing because a cast member wasn’t available!

So, with more than a month of anticipation and at least one false start, we were more than usually ready for the play to begin.

And it did not disappoint. It was expertly adapted to the stage by Shanahan, with clever techniques of compressing time and space.

It was humorous, with a wonderful cast that included two SHSU alums (Dylan Godwin and Melissa Pritchett)!

During intermission, we speculated as to who the culprit might be. Victoria couldn’t identify a key suspect; Nick, with all the creativity he could muster, thought “the butler did it;” and Katherine thought that the house staff conspired together to kill their employer, Roger Ackroyd. (If I were Katherine’s employer, I’d lock the doors at night.) Morgan, whose literary tastes lean toward bodice-ripping romance, had trouble keeping up with the characters and the narrative. She nodded a lot as we discussed things.

The second act was delightful, with more humor and variation in pacing. The plot, as they say, thickened, ending with all the cast gathered together to identify the murderer. We will, of course, stop there, and engage in no spoilers. But it surprised all of us–with the exception of Olivia, who, when it was over said, “I knew it all along” to an incredulous group and an ever-nodding Morgan.

Kudos to the cast of the Alley, the timeless appeal of Hercule Poirot, and the camaraderie of LEAP students, present and past.

Engaging with Theater–at Murder by the Book

The LEAP Center is known for its emphasis on civic and community engagement, and for good reason. But LEAP students also value a well-rounded education, and that involves the performing arts. So, in a month in which Ambassadors have seen the play “Wicked” and “Pirates of Penzance,” Ambassadors also decided to attend a book discussion of Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.”

What does this novel have to do with the performing arts? The Alley Theatre is currently performing this play, and we will be attending it on August 13. In advance of that performance, however, we visited Murder by the Book, where the book store hosted Mark Shanahan, the Director of Ackroyd and, as it turns out, a wonderful storyteller!

Shanahan discussed his career on the stage, both as a director and as an actor, and he also shared with us the fact that his sister (Christin Brecher) is a crime novelist, and she had a couple of books in the store!

Shanahan also explored the challenges and intrigues of presenting an Agatha Christie play. While Christie was a playwright of note, but The Murder of Roger Ackroyd hasn’t been adapted to the stage. It’s always challenging to adapt a beloved book, especially a whodunit that has been around for almost 100 years–because people already know whodunit!

But Shanahan obviously relishes the challenge, and many in the audience had seen some of the preview performances, and they had good things to say. With that encouragement, we sought out Shanahan for some photos, and we were fortunate to be joined by a couple members of the Ackroyd crew.

Although these preliminary reviews were very positive, we will return with the definitive review following our visit to the Alley on August 13!