Actor Ken Bolden Dons Trench Coat, Fedora and Three-Piece Suit to Become Inspector Hubbard in PPT's Dial M for Murder

 

Actor Ken Bolden Courtesy Photo

            When Pittsburgh-based actor Ken Bolden takes the stage on opening night as Inspector Hubbard in Dial M for Murder, his performance will mark, as far as he can recall, his eighth Pittsburgh Public Theater performance.

          Past roles include Commander Stone in A Few Good Men, Karl Linder in A Raisin in the Sun, Mr. Kraler in The Diary of Anne Frank (his cat Bert also co-starred in the production!), Vinnie in The Odd Couple, Angelo in The Comedy of Errors, Assistant Hotel Manager in Born Yesterday and Valet in Amadeus.

          Locally, the seasoned actor has also landed roles in productions by Bricolage Theater, City Theatre, PICT and Quantum Theatre. As to his upcoming role as the chief sleuth, he believes Dial M is his first thriller and that he’s really enjoying playing a middle-class role, something he doesn’t get to do often.

          Bolden, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, first moved to Pittsburgh to pursue his undergraduate degree in 17th and 18th century literature at Duquesne University. Subsequently, he moved to London to study at the London Academy of Music and Arts where he earned a certificate in acting.

From 1994 to 2006, he worked in New York, largely as a human resource project coordinator for Lehman Brothers. On several occasions, he returned to London on a special project for Lehman, which allowed him to visit friends and attend the theater. While living in New York, he also managed to perform in plays both off-Broadway and regionally.

          “For a while, I’d been chewing on leaving New York, which had become too expensive to enjoy what makes New York, New York,” he said. “When a group of friends in Pittsburgh were in the process of starting a performing arts high school, they invited me to be its principal. I said yes and moved back to Pittsburgh in 2006. Eventually, however, they lost their lease on the building, and the project fell through.”

From 2006 until just recently, Bolden processed incoming new stock.at the GAP. Currently he does a mix of odd jobs, like manning the front desk at condominiums in the evenings and doing yard work.

“I feel obligated to tell my support jobs that theater gets my top priority,” he said.

He also taught acting at the University of Pittsburgh for a number of years

Since 2006, he’s lived on a third-floor apartment in the Friendship neighborhood of Pittsburgh where he said he’s experienced good apartment karma and now feels like a native Pittsburgher.

When asked about some of his favorite roles he said there were too many to choose from but there are some he really would have liked to have done such as Richard II and Richard III.

“There are so many I have aged out of, because, as you age, the prospects diminish,” he said. “As to the future, I’d really love to do Titus Andronicus, and maybe, someday, Polonius.

More about the Play

          Based on the writing of English playwright, Frederick Knott, Dial M made its way into a 1954 film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock that starred Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, Robert Cummings, Anthony Dawson and John Williams.

The plot centers on a jealous husband who’s wrought over his wife Margot’s illicit love affair. The narrative takes a sinister turn as he, Margot, her lover, and a figure from his past weave an intricate web of deception. As the tension rises, the consequences of suspicion and desire become deadly.

Josh Innerst as Tony and Ken Bolden as Inspector Hubbard Credit: Maranie R. Staab

   Ironically, Bolden says Dial M is one of the holes in the Hitchcock oeuvre. He’s never seen the film and avoided seeing it prior to PPT’s current production because he didn’t want to be overly influenced by the film. Instead, he’s following director, Tony Award nominee, Celine Rosenthal’s take on the role.

          “I do plan to watch the video of the film after the production closes,” he said.

          Playwright Knott is known for writing complex, convoluted plots and to help sort out the intricacies, Bolden created a “crime board” identifying the suspects and showing how they connected and tied together.

          “The play is plot heavy, and you have to make sure every screw and bolt in the machinery runs smoothly so the audience gets every point,” he said. “It’s really hard work to pull off successfully.”

Ken Bolden as Inspector Hubbard, Josh Innerst as Tony, Brooke Turner as Margot and Shannon Williams as Maxine Credit: Maranie R. Staab

          Playwright Jeff Hatcher (Compleat Female Stage Beauty and Three Viewings) adapted the play for today’s audiences, giving the wife, Margot’s character, more agency.  He kept the 1950s setting but changed the gender of the person that Margot is having an affair with from a man to a woman. By doing so, he heightens the stakes, because in the 1950s, a wealthy woman having an affair with a man she's not married to is certainly frowned upon but isn’t necessarily ruinous in that time period.

          However, a woman having an affair with a woman in the 1950s? That is something disastrous. It’s career-ending for them, something that would ostracize them from society and grounds for prosecution. It's definitely a much graver outcome were they to be discovered and gives the story line much more meat.

          “Celine likes the way the adaptation spotlights women and gay women in particular,” Bolden said. “It’s a very positive message that is empowering. It’s a very smart retelling of an old play that feels to me like a period piece that’s also an intricate mystery.”

          As a key member of Ring of Keys, an artist service organization that fosters community and visibility for musical theatre artists who self-identify as queer women, transgender, and gender non-conforming artists, director Rosenthal said in a recent interview with PPT administrators that “uncovering queer history is a personal passion of mine. Especially given that we lost an entire generation of elders in the late eighties and nineties through the AIDS epidemic, there's so much history that just hasn't been passed down to us as younger queers.”

 “We need to preserve it and to be able to do that research and to look back at what lesbian culture was like in the 1950s,” she continued. “To remember that and recall that and then be able to sprinkle it in and present it on stage is really exciting.”

Critics raved over Rosenthal’s recent direction of the adaptation at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, and Pittsburgh Public Theater’s production features members of the same creative team, including set designer Antonio Ferron, costume designer Tracy Dorman, and fight director Mark Rose.

As to the Pittsburgh premiere of the play, Bolden said he’s grateful for and enjoying enormously the opportunity to play Inspector Hubbard at the Public.

“It’s another of those roles I relish playing,” he said.

          Dial M for Murder is at Pittsburgh Public Theater, 621 Penn Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh, from September 11 to 29. For tickets and more information, go to ppt.org or 412 316-1600.