Wichita Repertory Theatre takes Agatha Christie legal drama to real, historic courtroom

Halfway through watching a performance of “Witness for the Prosecution” in London County Hall in 2018, Julie and Stan Longhofer turned to each other with the same thought: “We could do this kind of thing in Wichita!”

Seven years later, the Agatha Christie mystery, set in and taking place in a real courtroom, will make its debut beginning next week at the Sedgwick County Historic Courthouse by the Longhofers’ Wichita Repertory Theatre, or ICTRep.

“It’s really quite an experience because of the site-specific quality, where you’re sitting there in a courtroom, watching someone be tried for murder in a time period of 1953,” Julie Longhofer said of the current London version, which opened in 2017 and still running, minus a recess for the pandemic. “If you were convicted of murder in 1953 in London, you were to be taken almost immediately and hung by the neck until dead. It’s a very cool experience.”

The historic courthouse, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was in use for 71 years until the current courthouse opened in 1959. The county offered ICTRep use of the courtroom, currently used for DUI prevention classes, for free as long as the company provided security.

“You walk in and kind of feel respectful in the room,” Longhofer said.

The gallery in the courtroom seats between 60 and 70, she said. As with the London performance, audience members can sit in the jury box for a premium.

Several of the six performances are nearly sold out, but a wait list has been established at the ICTRep website. No more performances can be added.

Longhofer said the first thing she noticed in the courtroom when preparing it for 1953 London was formal portraits on the wall of past Sedgwick County judges and Wichita mayors.

“It’s a very nice to look to it,” she said. “However, they look very 20th century, and they look very, very Kansas.”

She’s replacing them with framed pictures of British barristers of that era, blown up to fit the frames.

“When you walk in, you’ve got these English lords staring at you,” Longhofer said. “It’s been a very creative opportunity.”

Speaking of barristers, the Christie play is written for the two opposing attorneys to both be men, common at the time in the UK. Longhofer approached the theatrical licenser, which contacted the Christie estate, to ask if “Mr. Myers” in the drama could be changed to a woman – “Helena Myers, Queen’s Counsel,” an homage to Helena Normanton, one of the few British attorneys at the time.

“I was actually surprised but very happy,” Longhofer said. “I thought Michele Janssens would be great in this role, and it really has opened things up in a special way.”

“It was not unheard of,” Janssens said of female barristers, “but what has been interesting to me is the nature of the show, and certainly some of the male characters, have a sexist undertone because of the time it was written in and because of the nature of the story.

“I think it’s been really interesting how the script and the text lends itself to being even more interesting, I think, when the prosecution is played by a woman,” said Janssens, whose opposing counsel is played by Matthew Gwinner. “It was kind of a surprise, because it tightens the drama.”

Longhofer asked Paula Makar, a Wichita theater veteran, to direct the production.

“Julie is very exacting in what she likes to do, and I find it very brave of her to relinquish this part of the process to me,” Makar said. “I’m very honored and very humbled and very, very excited.”

The cast has been rehearsing in a space in Andover that replicates the courtroom in Wichita.

As opposed to a typical theatrical presentation, the courtroom will have audience members in both the gallery and the jury box, and Makar said she wants both to have good sight lines for the cast.

“I’ve got a rule – backs to the corners,” she said.

Part of the courtroom will be raised, designed by Stan Longhofer, for a better view from the gallery and to represent two scenes that don’t take place in the courtroom.

Christie’s works are known for their intriguing plot twists, and “Witness for the Prosecution” – which was turned into a 1957 movie with Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton – is no exception.

“The plot twists are very well-scripted and the challenge, both for the players and the director, is by the end you want to ask the audience if they could solve the crime, did you know who the murderer was?” Longhofer said. “You want them to say, ‘No, but I could have.’ You want to give them all the pieces of the puzzle. That part is well-scripted and the challenge is to perform it well for the audience.”

Makar said concealing one of the biggest plot twists involves a good cast and executing the delivery.

“At some point you need to play an identity game of who this mysterious person is,” she said. “You have to approach it really savvy with your costume choices and wig choices and how to play your sleight of hand to keep the audience guessing.”

‘WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION’ BY WICHITA REPERTORY THEATRE

When: March 28 to April 6; 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Historic Sedgwick County Courthouse, 510 N. Main, Room 301

This story was originally published March 21, 2025 at 3:16 AM.