ST. PETERSBURG \u2014 After a run of \u201cTell Me on a Sunday,\u201d freeFall will continue its 2025-2026 season with Ira Levin\u2019s \u201cDeathtrap.\u201d The production will run Oct. 24 through Dec. 7 at freeFall Theatre, 6099 Central Ave., St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
Eric Davis and Natalie Symons will star in \u201cDeathtrap,\u201d considered Broadway\u2019s most successful comedy thriller.<\/p>\n
Comfortably ensconced in his charming Connecticut home, Sidney Bruhl, a successful writer of Broadway thrillers, is struggling to overcome a dry spell which has resulted in a string of failures and a shortage of funds. A possible break in his fortunes occurs when he receives a script from a student in the seminar he has been conducting at a nearby college \u2014 a thriller that Sidney recognizes immediately as a potential Broadway smash. Sidney\u2019s plan, devised with his wife\u2019s help, is to offer collaboration to the student for co-credit. Or is it? \u201cDeathtrap\u201d provides twists and turns of devilish cleverness and offers hilariously sudden shocks in such abundance that audiences will be spellbound until the very last moment.<\/p>\n
This production of \u201cDeathtrap\u201d will feature Davis, freeFall\u2019s artistic director, as Sidney; Symons, an acclaimed playwright, as Sidney\u2019s wife Myra; and Robert Teasdale as Clifford Anderson. The rest of the cast features John Lombardi as Porter Milgrim and Sara DelBeato as Helga Ten Dorp.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeathtrap\u201d is a 1978 Broadway play by Ira Levin that masterfully blends suspense, black comedy, and numerous plot twists. A runaway commercial success, it became the longest-running thriller in Broadway history and was adapted into a 1982 film starring Michael Caine. The narrative revolves around a “play within a play” device, keeping the audience consistently off-balance and guessing about what is real and what is staged. The Broadway production featured a variety of stars in the role of Sidney Bruhl including John Wood, John Cullum, Farley Granger, Robert Reed and Stacy Keach. A successful West End production in 2010 starred Simon Russell Beale as Sidney, Estelle Parsons as Helga Ten Dorp and Jonathan Groff as Clifford Anderson.<\/p>\n