Broadway star William Gillette’s weekend cast party goes awry when one of his guests is stabbed to death. Now Gillette must channel his inner Sherlock Holmes to track down the killer before the murderer strikes again.
Playwright Ken Ludwig describes “The Game’s Afoot” as equal parts mystery and hilarity.
“Mysteries and comedies, especially if they're cozy mysteries, have a lot in common,” said Ludwig. “Comedies are like taking a jigsaw puzzle and throwing it up in the air, and all those pieces falling down and somehow linking together at the end so that picture comes together and gives us a sense of reassurance that we'll be alright and the world will be alright.”
He’s so good at the comedic mystery that Agatha Christie’s estate commissioned him to adapt “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Death on the Nile” for the stage.
“Comedy for me doesn't mean just getting laughs. It's a type of theater that touches our hearts and makes us think, but in a different way than tragedies do.”
“The Game’s Afoot” runs September 18-26 at The Belle Theatre in Cape Coral.
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The play is set in a Connecticut castle in 1936. The castle is described as an isolated house of tricks and mirrors. The danger and laughter are nonstop.
The play was published by Samuel French, Inc. on November 14, 2012, and later won the Edgar Award for Best Play in 2012.
The title is a reference to Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” where King Henry gives a speech to his troops before he leads them into the Siege of Harfleur. During this speech, he uses the phrase “the game’s afoot” to signal that the battle is about to begin.
Ludwig is a huge fan of the Bard.
“I've written a book called “How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare,” Ludwig said. “I've studied [Shakespeare] all my life and loved it. Not studied it because it was a job. I just love it …. ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and 'As You Like It’ and ‘Twelfth Night.’ And ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ may be the greatest comedy ever written. They’re are so stirring and so moving. They change our lives.”
About Ken Ludwig
Ken Ludwig is an internationally acclaimed playwright whose work has been performed in more than 30 countries in over 20 languages. He has won two Laurence Olivier Awards, two Helen Hayes Awards, the Edgar Award, the SETC Distinguished Career Award, and the Edwin Forrest Award for Services to the Theatre. His plays have been commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Bristol Old Vic.
Ludwig’s first play on Broadway, “Lend Me A Tenor,” won three Tony Awards and was nominated for nine. He’s completed three dozen plays and has a number of others in various stages of development.
Ludwig said he writes six to eight hours a day, seven days a week, a throwback to the days before “Lend Me a Tenor,” when he’d get up at 4 a.m., write until 8:30 and then suit up and go to his day job.
“I don't think you can become a serious artist unless you work that hard,” Ludwig maintained.
Inspiration has never been a stumbling block.
“I always have more stories than I could possibly write,” he said. “That’s the easy part. But then after an idea comes to me, comes two months of sitting by myself with a pen.”
Literally. Ludwig writes everything longhand.
“I've got to decide what's the community of the story. Where is it set? What part of the country? Who is involved? Does it reflect, because I'm such a Shakespeare guy, to what extent is the central character maybe a Much-Ado-About-Nothing kind of character, where they're a couple who are in love but drive each other a little crazy, but ultimately find that their love for each other matters more than anything else. So, I'm always thinking, and it typically takes me about two months to come up with the story and the characters and the idea of what the plot is going to be. And then I sit down and write it.”
It generally takes Ludwig about four months to progress from idea to completed script. He’ll do that twice each year.
“Then the other four months of the year, I’m traveling around the world to see the shows.”
His other best-known Broadway and West End shows include “Crazy For You” (five years on Broadway, Tony and Olivier award winner for Best Musical), “Moon Over Buffalo,” “Lady Molly of Scotland Yard” (which made its world premiere in 2025 at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota), “Leading Ladies,” “Twentieth Century,” “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” “The Game's Afoot,” “The Fox on the Fairway,” “Midsummer/Jersey,” “The Three Musketeers,” “Treasure Island” and “The Beaux' Stratagem.”
His plays have starred Alec Baldwin, Carol Burnett, Lynn Redgrave, Mickey Rooney, Hal Holbrook, Dixie Carter, Tony Shalhoub, Anne Heche, Joan Collins, and Kristin Bell.
His book “How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare” was published in June 2013 by Random House, and his work has been published by the Yale Review.
Ludwig is a McCarter Theatre/Sallie B. Goodman Fellow, and he has degrees from Harvard, where he studied music with Leonard Bernstein, Haverford College and Cambridge University.
“I just look at myself and go, I just got lucky,” said Ludwig as the Sarasota interview drew to a close. “I get to do exactly what I want. When I talk to kids, especially, and I get a chance to talk to high school groups or college groups, I say do what you love. You've got to do what you love. My father put it this way. If you wake up in the morning and you don't look forward to going to work, you did something wrong, and you've got to go fix it. I get to do just what I love every day, and I hit the jackpot by luck."
Of course, luck is preparation meeting opportunity.
Ken Ludwig is the epitome of preparation.
For more information, visit www.kenludwig.com.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
