“Clue” is one of the few board games to make the jump to film and stage.

Actor Adam Brett, who grew up playing the board game and watching the 1985 movie that boasted a bevy of stars, including Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn and Christopher Lloyd, is now getting the chance to put his own spin on the classic. He stars as Wadsworth in the stage version, the same role Curry earned high praise for as the fast-talking butler at Boddy Manor, where bodies just seem to keep piling up.

The national tour of “Clue” comes to Pikes Peak Center Monday through Wednesday, where the cast will put the audience through a frenzied 90-minute, very physical, farce-style comedy, with no intermission.

“It’s a marathon of a show. My character never leaves the stage,” Brett said. “He’s an upright, by-the-book English butler. He’s very particular. All this chaos starts to hit him, and he has to put the pieces together and drive this train to the end of the play.”

This is Brett’s second time starring in “Clue.” He first appeared as Col. Mustard in 2024 at a regional theater in Illinois.

“Getting to play him is my favorite,” he said. “Getting to be one of the suspects and race around the house and not knowing what’s going on is joy. I remember watching the butler and thinking that’s hard to do. And now I’m getting to do it. It’s a dream come true.”

The plot

It’s a dark and stormy night when Wadsworth welcomes six guests to Boddy Manor. They’ve been invited to a dinner party by an anonymous host, but don’t know why. It doesn’t take long before the evening goes cockeyed, with blackmail, murder and deceit.

The characters

Col. Mustard: dimwitted.

Mrs. White: stoic.

Mrs. Peacock: proper.

Mr. Green: bumbling.

Professor Plum: studious.

Miss Scarlett: sultry.

Yvette: the sexy maid.

And Wadsworth. Inhabiting the role in the wake of a character actor like Curry is no small challenge, but Brett has found ways to make the butler his own.

“I’m a very physical actor,” he said. “Everything starts around the body for me. How does my butler stand? How does he pose? How does it affect him when a murder happens? It’s quite fun. If I had to describe him as an animal, I’d say a lizard. There’s something quick and sharp with him. He darts around the room. He’s very slick.”

The weapons

Candlestick, knife, lead pipe, revolver, rope and wrench.

Film versus stage

“Clue,” which debuted on stage in 2017, was preceded much earlier by a musical version of “Clue,” which ran off-Broadway in 1997.

The play sticks pretty well to the film, Brett says, with lots of references to the latter.

History of “Clue” the board game

Decades before the 1985 film, which had three different endings in a ploy to get audiences to pony up for more than one screening, there was a British musician named Anthony Pratt.

Pratt played piano at gatherings in European country mansions where guests enacted murder-mystery scenarios. Someone would pretend to die, and the others would sniff out the killer, according to History.com.

Inspired by those murder mysteries, Pratt created a board game called Murder!, later renamed Clue, during World War II. To pass the time while he worked in a munitions factory in England, he dreamed up the suspects and weapons we’ve come to love today.

In 1947, Pratt patented the game and sold it to Waddington’s, a U.K.-based game manufacturer, and its American counterpart, Parker Brothers (now owned by Hasbro). It was finally released in 1949.

Details

What: “Clue”

When: 7:30 p.m. Monday through Wednesday

Where: Pikes Peak Center, 190 S. Cascade Ave.

Price: $39-$122; pikespeakcenter.com, axs.com