From the director

Dial M for Murder was written by Fredrick Knott in 1952 for BBC Television before it appeared onstage in 1953. Most of us know it from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film, starring Grace Kelly as Margot, which opened in 1954.
 
Jeffrey Hatcher was asked to adapt the stage play for the Old Globe in San Diego in the summer of 2022. Hatcher is adept at the art of adapting and updating. He captures the essence of a period while freeing it from the constraints of the original conventions.

This version is also set in the 1950s. The violence and power of the men in the play is seated within this world. The women in the play are constrained by the period but not reduced by it. Hatcher gifts us with an update that feels timeless. It’s thrilling to see the thorny machinations of such a complex plot unravel in a way that both honors and resists its origins.