Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery is a play by American playwright Ken Ludwig. It premiered at the Arena Stage in Southwest, Washington, D.C. in January 2015 and was directed by Amanda Dehnert. [1]
The play is a humorous adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1902 novel The Hound of the Baskervilles [2] featuring over forty characters played by five actors. [3]
Rehearsals were staged at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey. [1] The play featured two main roles, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, as well as numerous other roles played by only three other actors. Michael Glenn's roles included Daisy the scullery maid, Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrade and Sir Henry Baskerville. [1] Author Ludwig wanted to infuse suspense with humor saying "You’re not making fun of the genre, [but] at the same time, there’s a lot of laughs, because they come out of the tension." [1]
The other 40-plus roles were performed by three actors: Stanley Bahorek, Michael Glenn and Jane Pfitsch. [1]
The play, directed by Josh Rhodes, opened at Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California on July 30, 2015 and ran through September 6, 2015. [4]
Other roles played by Andrew Kober, Blake Segal and Liz Wisan. [4]
The play, directed by Loveday Ingram, [5] Liverpool Playhouse, in Liverpool, England on December 9, 2017. [6]
Other roles played by Bessie Carter, Edward Harrison and Ryan Pope. [6]
In July and August 2018, Theo Langason directed an adaptation of the play at Park Square Theatre in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It starred McKenna Kelly-Eiding and Marika Proctor as female Holmes and Watson, respectively. All the remaining roles were played by Eric "Pogi" Sumangil, Ricardo Beaird and Marika Proctor. [7]
Lavender Magazine's John Townsend called the production "triumphantly entertaining," citing the actors' comedic timing. [8]
Although the opening stage direction to Act One sets the action in the late 1890s, Act 1 Scene 3 has the two main protagonists attending a performance of Puccini's opera Tosca , at Covent Garden. This opera was first performed in Rome on January 14, 1900, and did not receive its London première until July 12, 1900. [9]
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely in Dartmoor, Devon in England's West Country and follows Holmes and Watson investigating the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. This was the first appearance of Holmes since his apparent death in "The Final Problem", and the success of The Hound of the Baskervilles led to the character's eventual revival.
Peter Jeremy William Huggins, known professionally as Jeremy Brett, was an English actor. He played fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series from 1984 to 1994 in all 41 episodes. His career spanned from stage, to television and film, to Shakespeare and musical theatre. He also played the smitten Freddy Eynsford-Hill in the 1964 Warner Bros. production of My Fair Lady.
Edward Cedric Hardwicke was an English actor, who had a distinguished career on the stage and on-screen. He was best known for playing Captain Pat Grant in Colditz (1972–73), and Dr. Watson in Granada Television's Sherlock Holmes (1986–94).
Ian Davies, better known by his stage name Ian Hart, is an English actor. His most notable roles have been in One Summer (1983), Backbeat (1994), Land and Freedom and Nothing Personal (1995), Michael Collins (1996), Liam (2000), as Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), as Ludwig van Beethoven in Eroica (2003), My Mad Fat Diary (2013–2015), as Father Beocca in The Last Kingdom (2015–2020), and The Responder (2022).
Ken Ludwig is an American playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose work has been performed in more than 30 countries in over 20 languages. He has had six productions on Broadway and eight in London's West End. His 34 plays and musicals are staged throughout the United States and around the world every night of the year.
The stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The four volumes of the Universal Sherlock Holmes (1995) compiled by Ronald B. De Waal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products. They include the original writings, "together with the translations of these tales into sixty-three languages, plus Braille and shorthand, the writings about the Writings or higher criticism, writings about Sherlockians and their societies, memorials and memorabilia, games, puzzles and quizzes, phonograph records, audio and video tapes, compact discs, laser discs, ballets, films, musicals, operettas, oratorios, plays, radio and television programs, parodies and pastiches, children's books, cartoons, comics, and a multitude of other items — from advertisements to wine — that have accumulated throughout the world on the two most famous characters in literature."
Sherlock Holmes has long been a popular character for pastiche, Holmes-related work by authors and creators other than Arthur Conan Doyle. Their works can be grouped into four broad categories:
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 1939 American gothic mystery film based on the 1902 Sherlock Holmes novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Directed by Sidney Lanfield, the film stars Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. John Watson. Released by 20th Century Fox, it is the first of fourteen Sherlock Holmes films produced between 1939 and 1946 starring Rathbone and Bruce.
A series of fourteen films based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories was released between 1939 and 1946; British actors Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce portrayed Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, respectively. The first two films in the series were produced by 20th Century-Fox and released in 1939. After these two films, Universal Pictures acquired the rights from the Doyle estate and produced a further twelve films.
The Cider Mill Playhouse in Endicott, New York, was a professional theatre that produced comedies, dramas, and musicals. It was a member of the Theatre Communications Group and operated as a Small Professional Theatre, Level 5, by annual contract with Actors' Equity Association.
John H. Watson, known as Dr. Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson first appeared in the novel A Study in Scarlet (1887). "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" (1927) is the last work of Doyle featuring Watson and Holmes, although their last appearance in the canonical timeline is in "His Last Bow" (1917).
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a Canadian television film directed by Rodney Gibbons and starring Matt Frewer and Kenneth Welsh. The film is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's 1902 Sherlock Holmes novel of the same name.
Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes are two British series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations for television produced by the BBC in 1965 and 1968 respectively. The 1965 production, which followed a pilot the year before, was the second BBC series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations, after one starring Alan Wheatley in 1951.
Sherlock Holmes is a film series running from 1931 to 1937. Arthur Wontner portrayed Sherlock Holmes in five films.
From 1921 to 1923, Stoll Pictures produced three series of silent black-and-white films based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Forty-five short films and two feature-length films were produced featuring Eille Norwood in the role of Holmes and Hubert Willis cast as Dr. Watson with the exception of the final film, The Sign of Four, where Willis was replaced with Arthur Cullin. Consequently, Norwood holds the record for most appearances as Sherlock Holmes in film.
Sherlock Holmes is the overall title given to the series of radio dramas adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories that aired between 1952 and 1969 on BBC radio stations. The episodes starred Carleton Hobbs as Sherlock Holmes and Norman Shelley as Dr. Watson. All but four of Doyle's sixty Sherlock Holmes stories were adapted with Hobbs and Shelley in the leading roles, and some of the stories were adapted more than once with different supporting actors.