Perfect Crime celebrates 10,000 performance

Warren Manzi's thriller Perfect Crime, directed by Jeffrey Hyatt, will celebrate its 10,000 performance on 25 Sep 2011. The show still stars its original leading lady Catherine Russell.

Manzi's Perfect Crime, now in its 25th year, opened Off-Broadway on 18 Apr 1987, and has played at a number of Off-Broadway venues during its long run - it's current home is at Snapple Theater Center - where it is currently booking through to 18 Dec 2011.

The script sat in Manzi's drawer for seven years until he became the artistic director of a theater company that produced the play. Initially opening as an Equity Showcase on 18 Apr 1987 for a four-week limited run at The Courtyard Playhouse, Perfect Crime has since become what New York Times critic Jason Zinoman called "an urban legend" thanks to its incredible staying power.

A secluded mansion. A would-be murderess. The Perfect Crime. Margaret Brent is an accomplished Connecticut psychiatrist and potential cold-blooded killer. When her wealthy husband turns up dead, she gets caught in the middle of a terrifying game of cat and mouse with a deranged patient and the handsome but duplicitous investigator assigned to the case.

The cast of Perfect Crime features Catherine Russell (Margaret Thorne Brent), John Hillner (W. Harrison Brent), Richard Shoberg (Inspector Ascher), George McDaniel (Lionel McAuley) and Patrick Robustelli (David Breuer - video recording).

Leading lady Catherine Russell has starred in the show since its first performance, has only missed four of those 10,000 performances, a feat which has landed her in the Guinness Book of World Records. Russell's incredible streak has been featured on Entertainment Tonight, The Today Show and Good Morning America and in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News and numerous other publications including People, which dubbed her "The Cal Ripken of Broadway".

Since Perfect Crime opened in 1987, Russell has spent over two years of her life (nearly 17,000 hours) onstage. She has shot 89 different men and kissed 57 others. Almost 83,000 bullets have been fired onstage and over 5,000 prop coffee cakes have been eaten. Amazingly, the show has employed 237 actors during its 24-year existence.