Directed by

Robyn Duquesne Fichter

May 16 - 25 , 2008

at Parker School Theatre

Wait Until Dark is an innovative, highly entertaining and suspenseful thriller about a blind housewife, Susy Hendrix. Independent and resourceful, Susy is learning to cope with her blindness, which resulted from a recent accident. She is aided by her difficult, slightly unreliable young neighbor Gloria with whom she has an exasperated but lovingly maternal relationship. Susy's life is changed as she is terrorized by a group of criminals who believe she has hidden a baby doll used by them to smuggle heroin into the country. Unknown to Susy, her photographer husband Sam took the doll as a favor for a woman he met on an international plane flight and unwittingly brought the doll to the couple's New York apartment when the woman became afraid of the customs officials. Alone in her apartment and cut-off from the outside world, Susy must fight for her life against a gang of ruthless criminals, led by the violent, psychotic Roat. The tension builds as Roat, aided by his gang, impersonates police officers and friends of her husband in order to win Susy's confidence, gaining access to her apartment to look for the doll. The climax of the film, a violent physical confrontation between Susy and Roat in her dark kitchen, is one of the most memorable and frightening scenes in stage history.

After seven previews, the Broadway production, directed by Arthur Penn, opened on February 2, 1966 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Within the next eleven months, it transferred to the Shubert, the George Abbott, and the Music Box Theatres before it ended its run of 374 performances. The cast included Lee Remick, Robert Duvall, and Mitchell Ryan. Remick was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.