THEATRE 40 opened it's 2010-2011 season with BLACK COFFEE, AGATHA CHRISTIE'S first staged mystery and the only one to feature her most memorable character, HERCULE POIROT. Christie's thriller marked the start of Theatre 40's 45th Season on July 7th, 2010, opening in their Reuben Cordova Theatre on the Beverly Hills High School Campus
 
Sir Claud Amory's formula for a powerful new explosive has been stolen, presumably by a member of his large household. Sir Claud assembles his suspects in the library and locks the door, instructing them that when the lights go out, the formula must be replaced on the table — and no questions will be asked. But when the lights come on, Sir Claud is dead. Now Hercule Poirot, assisted by Captain Hastings and Inspector Japp, must unravel a tangle of family feuds, old flames, and suspicious foreigners to find the killer and prevent a global catastrophe.
 
AGATHA CHRISTIE was a remarkable creator of mysteries. She had made her debut as a crime novelist in 1920 with The Mysterious Affair at Styles in which she introduced her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. By 1930, Poirot had appeared in four more novels and several short stories. It was probably because of her dissatisfaction with Alibi, the play which someone else had made out of one of those novels, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, that Mrs. Christie decided to try her hand at putting Poirot on the stage in a play of her own. BLACK COFFEE was a success at the Embassy Theatre in 1930 and opened the following April in the West End of London at the St. Martin's Theatre where it ran for many months.
 
BRUCE GRAY, a favorite of Theatre 40 audiences, is directing BLACK COFFEE. Prior to Black Coffee, Bruce directed another Agatha Christie thriller, "The Unexpected Guest" at Theatre 40. It was so popular with audiences, it transferred to the Tiffany Theatre. He has directed a play each year for the Company, from Neil Simon's moving "Chapter Two" to "Seymour In The Very Heart of Winter" (Critic's Choice). Last year's show for the company was what one critic called a "dazzling" production of the "Voysey Inheritance", in a new translation by David Mamet. It garnered several "Critic's Choices". He has had a recent run of popular "Modern Classics:" The Little Foxes, Dangerous Corner, The Constant Wife. Previously he helmed two thoroughly modern comedies "Chekhov In Yalta" (Critic's Choice) and "Veronica's Position."
 
Following a five-year hiatus (whence he was a series lead in Lifetime's TRADERS…Gemini Award), he was invited back to Theatre 40 to direct Plastic for the One Act Festival. His 9th directorial assignment for Theatre 40 was a revival of Joe Orton's comic masterpiece What The Butler Saw. His earlier productions of Orton's Loot and Entertaining Mr. Sloane had received multiple Drama-logue awards, and were nominated for Robbie and LA Weekly awards. The LA Times called his 1982 staging of Blythe Spirit for Theatre 40 the year's most beautiful production.
 
Gray has directed at virtually every major Waiver Theatre in town, from his controversial production of My Life In Art at the Tiffany to the AIDS play "seven sundays" (Drama-logue) at the Odyssey. His 1993 production of the Holocaust play Shayna Maidel was hailed by critics as "wondrous. It doesn't get better than this." Bruce Gray is an actor by profession. His credits appear on imdb or (www.bruce-gray.com)