CF Theatre will present “Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express” Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 17-19, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 20, at 3 p.m. in the Dassance Fine Arts Center.

This production is adapted by Ken Ludwig, directed by CF Associate Professor Dr. Kathleen Downs, and produced by special arrangement with Samuel French. The show is set in December 1935 when famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot’s train becomes trapped in deep snow and he is called on to solve a murder that occurred in a first-class sleeping car the night before.

Agatha Christie drew on her time treating Belgian soldiers during World War I to create the character of the fastidious, eccentric Hercule Poirot, whom she describes as a celebrated veteran of the war. “Murder on the Orient Express” specifically emerged from Christie’s fascination with the train route, which she rode first in 1928, and her time in Turkey and the Middle East. She wrote the novel almost entirely in a room at the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul.

In 1926, Christie disappeared for 11 days, spurring a media sensation and a manhunt that even involved fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle. She was found alive and well at a hotel and spa in Harrogate. Today, biographers attribute the disappearance to an emotional crisis following the death of her mother.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for nonstudents. CF students, faculty and staff are free with CF identification. For tickets and more information, call the CF Box Office at 352-873-5810 or visit www.tickets.cf.edu. The box office is located in lobby of the Fine Arts Center and is open from Monday-Friday, 1-4 p.m. and an hour before show time.

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