Justin Bolinger, left, as Dr. Carelli, and Coylee Bryan as Caroline Amory confer during a scene from “Black Coffee,” which opens Friday at the Oak Street Playhouse.IF YOU GO• What: “Black Coffee.”• When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Oct. 2-4; 2:30 p.m. Oct. 5.• Where: Oak Street Playhouse, corner of Vine and Lindsay streets (in First-Centenary United Methodist Church).• Admission: $12 adults, $10 seniors and groups, $5 students; all adult tickets $10 opening night and Girlfriends Night Out (Oct. 2).• Phone: 423-756-2428.• Website: www.oakstreetplayhouse.com.
Mystery can be intriguing but also entertaining.
That’s the story with “Black Coffee,” the Agatha Christie mystery that opens in the Oak Street Playhouse’s Flo Summitt Theater on Friday, Sept. 26.
“It’s entertainment as well as mystery,” says director Brenda Schwab. “It has humor but also some quirky, odd characters.”
The story focuses on British physicist Sir Claude Amory, who has come up with a formula for an atom bomb. In the first act, he is poisoned – in his black coffee, of course. That brings in Hercule Poirot, one of Christie’s most famous sleuths, who, naturally, solves the case.