About the Play:
Lost in the fog, a stranger seeks refuge in a nearby house only to find a man shot dead and his wife standing over him with a smoking gun. But the woman’s dazed confession is anything but convincing and the unexpected guest decides to help. Remarkably, the police clues point to a man who died two years previously, but as the ghosts of a past wrong begin to emerge, a tangled web of lies reveals family secrets and chilling motives, where the real murderer turns out to be the greatest mystery of all.
Director: Jeff Book
Jeff is an American actor, working professionally over the last several years in film, TV, commercials and modelling projects. He completed stage and film actor training in London at Rose Bruford College, Drama Studio London, Actor’s Studio at Pinewood Studios, City Academy London, and International School of Screen Acting, and he is represented by Crawford Talents in Berlin. He has been performing on stage with FEST since 2007, with leading roles in Death of A Salesman, Doubt: A Parable, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound, Our Country’s Good, and many more. He also has several credits as a Director with FEST, including such works as Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Woody Allen’s Old Saybrook, Patrick Hamilton’sGaslight, and several more. He frequently offers Acting workshops, training courses, and actor coaching for FEST and other English language groups.
Cast:
Emma Merritt as Laura Warwick
Emma made her FEST debut in Autumn 2023 as Nina in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Since then, she has had the privilege to participate in nearly every FEST production, portraying Izzy in Rabbit Hole, Pony in The Realistic Joneses, assistant directing Almost, Maine, and donning a variety of backstage hats in between.
As always, she dedicates every performance to her wife, Rachel, without whom she would have never eaten a proper dinner on weekday rehearsal nights. She also thanks her parents, who first enrolled her in drama classes more than twenty years ago and who traveled from the States to be here on opening night. If you enjoy her portrayal of Laura, feel free to buy any of them a drink.
Hazem Elessawy as Michael Starkwedder
Hazem comes from the land of the pharaohs. He doesn’t take his camel to work, though, nor does he live in a pyramid. He discovered the world of theatre in his junior year at the American University in Cairo and fell in love with it thanks to one enthusiastic professor. He appeared on FEST’s stage multiple times: as God in Rich Orloff’s Can This Marriage Be Saved, Fred Narracott in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Happy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Freddy in Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, and Hal in Woody Allen’s Old Saybrook, which represented FEST at the 2024 Festival of European Anglophone Theatrical Societies in Antwerp. His latest production with FEST was as Jimmy in Almost, Maine. He also currently serves as the Chair of the FEST Committee. Hazem is a full-time cinephile, booklover, and wannabe writer. In his free time, he “engineers” his way out of embarrassing situations.
Julie Ng as Miss Bennett
Born in the Philippines, Julie worked as a strategy consultant and internal auditor, traveling the world before settling in Germany with her husband, children, and dogs. She currently works in Accounting for Source For Alpha AG.
Julie’s first audition and stage performance was as Cassandra in FEST’s production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Since catching the theatre bug, she has taken on various backstage roles, including Costumes Manager for The Cherry Orchard and producing Old Saybrook, and Rabbit Hole. She also co-produced Gas Light with Alice Thomas and Pygmalion with Gulmira Jumayeva. In 2025, she returned to the stage as Jennifer in The Realistic Joneses and as Gayle and Rhonda in Almost, Maine, which she also produced.
Artemis Grey as Jan Warwick
This is Artemis’ first theatre production, for which they are equal parts excited and mildly terrified. Growing up, they spent a lot of time creating characters on their own, assuming this was just a weird habit rather than something worth pursuing. They’re delighted to finally have the opportunity to channel their creative energy onto a real stage. Artemis is extremely grateful to be working with such a talented and dedicated cast and crew, and can’t wait to continue growing as an actor.
Thomas Dewitz as Inspector Thomas
Thomas was born in Cologne and began acting as a teenager, starring in a theatre adaptation of Michael Ende’s Momo. Over the years, he played everything from butlers and bakers to French tourists and Roman emperors in various productions, including Oliver Twist and Hôtel des deux mondes. He made his first journey into English theatre with the group Trier English Drama as a student in the mid-2010s as a part of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Living and working in Frankfurt since 2023, he found the wonderful people from FEST who gave him a new home for his passion for acting and his love for the stage. Thomas has been involved with FEST on- and offstage in productions such as Gaslight, Pygmalion, and Sorry, Wrong Number. He is looking forward to many more projects in the future.
Oguz Akgeyik as Sergeant Cadwallader
Oguz grew up in Istanbul, Turkey. During his childhood, he participated in numerous school plays, always loving his time on the stage. Later on, he took a break to focus on his academic path as an engineer. After settling in Frankfurt in 2023, he decided to explore opportunities to get back on stage and was able to reignite his passion for this artwork by joining several theater groups in 2023, and since then he acted in Leerer Rahmen (Empty Frame) with Tiyatro Frankfurt. He performed in the musical Lysistrata and the garden show Love’s Labour’s Lost with Shakespeare Frankfurt. Also, he has already been part of three FEST shows (The Cherry Orchard, Trifles, and Almost Maine), and he is looking forward to being part of his fourth production with FEST.
Pieter van de Ploeg as Henry Angell
Born and raised in the Netherlands, Pieter made his theater debut while studying English in Amsterdam, performing in two self-written plays and A Streetcar Named Desire. After a long break, he joined FEST to perform in The Cherry Orchard in 2024, and was a stage manager for Pygmalion in 2025. Thanks to Jeff, Pieter is now ready to take on a new acting challenge in The Unexpected Guest.
Walter Schröder as Julian Farrar
Walter’s fourth outing with FEST finds him as Julian Farrar—smooth, strategic, and just a little slippery. Previous FEST roles: Charles in Charley’s Aunt (2018), “Loverboy” Max Halliday in Dial M for Murder (2015), and the unabashedly carnal Lombard in And Then There Were None (2016). Born in New Orleans, raised in Austin and Germany, he acted through school in Germany and France, took drama classes in the U.S., and worked in TV on and off camera. He certainly has his moments—and yes, he’s hot.
Barbara Zacharias as Mrs. Warwick
After yearly childhood stints of being THE angel in the church Christmas play and playing many different roles in her high school’s theatre club, real-life as a re-plant from Canada to Germany held enough drama for Barbara until 2011, when she and TLS (Theatre Language Studio Frankfurt) discovered each other. She found her way back to the stage as Betty in The Foreigner and continued to enjoy many roles and activities there. Having spent a few years on hiatus as “only” an avid audience member, Barbara is super glad to have been welcomed into the FEST-fold of very fine, fun FEST-folk to be on stage again as yet another senior woman – this time without having to colour her hair!
Production Crew:
Producer: Julie Ng
Assistant Producer: Aditya Singh
Set Design: Isabel Bohlman
Set Design Team: Apoorva Patrikar, Carlos Diaz, Rebecca Pollack, and Mark Marsden
Props: Eva Castell
Costumes: Julie Regenbogen and Gulmira Jumayeva
Stage Manager: Izzy Krier
Tech: Anne Flaherty
Hair: Cher Chislett and Ella Gogolin
Photography: Renata Jaroscakova of Real Joy Photography
Thank you to our sponsor:
