Murder on the Nile Hand Fan Playbill – 1978

As part of the McDonogh School Agatha Christie Festival in 1978, the theater program put on a stage production of Murder on the Nile. The playbill for the production was designed as a hand fan to tie into the setting of the play. The Evening Sun, a Baltimore newspaper, advertised the play in an article on local school productions for the spring season in its edition on April 20, 1978. The festival took place in the Studio Theater and was led by longtime teacher John Van Meter who creatively reimagined everyday spaces as the backdrop for the performance; for example, Van Meter turned an Upper School teacher’s lounge in Edwards Gym into the Studio Theater. An icon of McDonogh theater, Van Meter’s former students remember him for pushing the theater program to new heights because he believed McDonogh was “too good not to be better.”