Sleuth is a 1970 Tony Award-winning play by Anthony Shaffer. 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... What is popularly called the Tony Award (formally, the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre) is an annual award celebrating achievements in live American theater, including musical theater, primarily honoring productions on Broadway in New York. ... Anthony Joshua Shaffer, (May 15, 1926 – November 6, 2001), was a English dramatist. ...

The play is set in the Wiltshire, England manor house of Andrew Wyke, an immensely successful mystery writer. His home reflects Wyke's obsession with the inventions and deceptions of fiction and his fascination with games and game-playing. He lures his wife's lover, Milo Trindle, to the house and convinces him to stage a robbery of her jewelry, a proposal that sets off a chain of events that leaves the audience trying to decipher where Wyke's imagination ends and reality begins. A bridge over the river Avon at Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire Wiltshire (abbreviated Wilts) is a large southern English county. ...

Shaffer said the play was partially inspired by one of his friends, composer Stephen Sondheim, whose intense interest in games-playing is mirrored by the character of Wyke. Stephen Joshua Sondheim (b. ...

The play's first production, starring Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter, was at London's Ambassadors Theatre. Anthony Quayle Sir John Anthony Quayle (7 September 1913 – 20 October 1989) was an English actor and director. ... With Orson Welles (left) in the film Chimes at Midnight Keith Baxter (born April 29, 1933) is a Welsh theatre, film, and television actor. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... The Ambassadors, as it was originally known, and St Martins were conceived by their architect, W.G.R. Sprague, as companions, born at the same time in 1913, but World War I interrupted the construction of the latter for three years. ...

After four previews, the Broadway production, with Quayle and Baxter directed by Clifford Williams, opened on November 9, 1970 at the Majestic Theatre, where it ran for 1222 performances. Broadway theatre[1] is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. ... Clifford Williams (1926 – 20 August 2005) was a Welsh theatre director and stage actor. ... The Majestic Theatre is a Broadway theatre on 247 West 44th Street in Manhattan, New York City. ...

In 1972, Shaffer adapted his play for a critically and commercially successful film version directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... Sleuth is the 1972 film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning play by British playwright Anthony Shaffer, who wrote the screenplay. ... Joseph Leo Mankiewicz (February 11, 1909–February 6, 1993) was an American Hollywood screenwriter, director and producer. ... Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907–11 July 1989) was an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and four-time Emmy winning English actor, director, and producer. ... Sir Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, KBE (born March 14, 1933), known professionally as Michael Caine, is a double Oscar-winning English film actor. ...

Awards and nominations

• Tony Award for Best Play (winner)
• Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play (nominee)
• Tony Award for Best Lighting Design (nominee)
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance (Quayle and Baxter, winners)

Created in 1955, the Drama Desk Award was created to recognize Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway shows in addition to Broadway shows. ...

External link

Internet Broadway Database listing