The Mousetrap Tickets

By: Agatha Christie

Christie based elements of The Mousetrap on the real-life case of a man accused of murdering his parents, who abused him as a boy. She first premiered the show as a radio play before adapting it as a short story, and then for the stage. The short story has yet to be published in the U.K.; it cannot do so as long as The Mousetrap is running in London.

And the play shows no signs of slowing down. The Mousetrap opened in 1952 and has played more than 29,000 performances to more than 10 million audience members. The only break in its record-setting run was from March 2020 to May 2021 due to the pandemic.

The 2023 Broadway premiere is the second production of The Mousetrap in New York. The play ran off Broadway from November 1960 to April 1961. The Mousetrap on Broadway was announced on the play's 70th London anniversary: November 25, 2022.

What to watch for

• The only surviving piece of The Mousetrap's original set from 1952, a mantelpiece clock, will be part of the Broadway set. A wind machine used backstage in London, which bears the name of original Mousetrap producer Peter Saunders, will also be brought over for the Broadway production.
• The Mousetrap takes its title from a Hamlet line. Hamlet metaphorically calls The Murder of Gonzago, a play performed within Hamlet, a "mousetrap" because he hopes it will move his uncle to confess to a murder.
• Christie didn't expect her play to run for longer than a year, let alone decades! In her autobiography, she recalls thinking The Mousetrap would last for eight months tops.
• The Mousetrap's London cast changes annually, and there's a tradition of the new and former leading ladies cutting a cake together when the changeover happens. Maybe the Broadway cast will adopt the tradition if The Mousetrap runs for a long time!
• A clause in The Mousetrap's contract says a film adaptation can't be made until six months after the West End production closes. The clause is a plot point in the 2022 film See How They Run, in which a murder occurs backstage at The Mousetrap. The clause is a potential motive for one suspect. The reference to the clause is also ironic, as See How They Run riffs on the plot and characters of The Mousetrap anyway.
• There's also a Tom Stoppard play, 1968's The Real Inspector Hound, that parodies The Mousetrap. The title is a reference to The Mousetrap's top-secret ending — but if you don't know it, we won't spoil it!