The History of Dial "M"

Born in 1916, Frederick Knott grew up in a fairly wealthy family in England. He attended private schools growing up. He was an avid tennis player and almost played at Wimbledon after graduating with a degree in law but instead decided to enlist in the British military at the outbreak of World War II. After the war he began writing plays inspired by the Gilbert and Sullivan shows he saw growing up. Dial "M" for Murder was the first play that he had performed. It was first performed as a live television play on the BBC in March hof 1952 before it opened on the West End later that year in June. It was a great hit and moved to Broadway that fall. This production would star some of the actors who would later be in the Hitchcock Film. Knott would go on to write two more plays Write Me a Murder and Wait Until Dark. Knott gave up writing plays later in life. He had some rough sketches for ideas but found himself able to live comfortably on the income from his previous works. You can read more about his life and the difficult journey to get Dial "M" to the stage in his obituary from 2002

Jeffery Hatcher grew up in Ohio before attending New York University to study acting. After acting professionally for a short while he transitioned to writing plays. He has written a number of original plays and adaptations including the book for the broadway musical Never Gonna Dance and the Edgar Award winning Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. In addition to a prolific amount of plays he has written for film and TV with titles such as Stage Beauty, The Duchess, and the series Columbo. Hatcher was approached by the artistic director of the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego and asked to update Dial "M" for a more modern audience. They suggested he change the character of Max to a female character named Maxine. Hatcher thought the idea was excellent and found many of the complications this created conducive to the original plot.  When making the changes he wanted to expand the agency that Margot as well as play with the genre of the story to introduce a bit more humor in the script. You can hear him speak more about the adaptation here as he speaks to an audience in Texas. In 2023 he was tied fifth place for the most produced playwright in the United States.