About the Play:

Whodunnit (originally called The Case Of The Oily Levantine) is a full-length comedy mystery by Anthony Shaffer. Six strangers gather for a black-tie dinner at an English estate on a stormy night, invited by an insidious blackmailer who tries to exploit each of them in turn. This Broadway success is a  traditional mystery play with a deathly twist. It has all the dazzling cleverness we associate with the celebrated writer of Sleuth and keep's audiences guessing to the last minute.

Whodunnit takes audiences to Agatha Christie's England. Six strangers and a butler have gathered for a black tie dinner in a wealthy lawyer's mansion during a thunderstorm. The guests include an aged rear admiral, a bitchy aristocrat, a doddering old archaeologist, a dashing young cad and other Christie types. One of the guests is an oily Levantine who tells the others (each in private) that he has the goods to blackmail them. Inevitably the blackmailer is murdered, but as a detective arrives to investigate it becomes clear that everything we have accepted so far may not be what it seems. Whodunnit?

Whodunnit premiered 1977 as The Case Of The Oily Levantine at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, Surrey. Three years later the play opened in the US with the new title Whodunnit. It played first in Boston then transferred to the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway where it remained for almost six months, winning a Tony award and has since been performed worldwide..

Cast: 3 women, 7 men

What people say:

"A torrent of merriment ... heavy with excitement, crackles with repartee, rings the bell with epigrams, and detonates depth charges of laughter.... Converts the theatre into a discotheque of explosive delight ... [with] enough riotous surprises to supply another mystery dramatist with a trunkful of plays." — New York Magazine

About the Playwright:

Anthony Shaffer (1926-2001) was a leading British playwright, screenwriter and novelist. Noted for his elaborate plots, he is perhaps best remembered for with the subtly satirical and highly successful Sleuth, which won the Tony Award for Best Play and inspired two film versions. After receiving his degree from Cambridge, he worked as a barrister, a journalist and an advertising executive before devoting his energies to writing. With his twin brother Peter, he co-authored two novels under the pseudonym Peter Anthony before each carved out a niche on stage and in films. He wrote several television and stage plays, and many screenplays, including scripts for three Agatha Christie movies. In all of these, he introduced humorous twists absent from the original stories.