Pat Sajak Sets First Gig After ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Exit: A Regional Theater ‘Columbo’ Play in Hawaii (EXCLUSIVE)

Michael Schneider
·3-min read

Pat Sajak — whose final episode after 41 seasons as host of “Wheel of Fortune” airs this Friday — has already lined up his first post-game show gig. Sajak is set to reunite with longtime buddy Joe Moore, the KHON-TV Hawai’i newscaster and actor, back on stage in a new take on the play “Prescription: Murder.”

Sajak and Moore will star opposite each other in the play at downtown Honolulu’s Hawaii Theatre next summer, from July 31 to Aug. 10, 2025. The Hawaii Theatre is set to reveal the news on Friday, via a commercial that will run on KHON-TV during Sajak’s final “Wheel” episode.

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The 1962 mystery-thriller “Prescription: Murder” was written by William Link and Richard Levinson, who turned the play into the TV series “Columbo.” The plot to “Prescription: Murder” was adapted for the “Columbo” first episode.

In the Hawaii Theatre version, Sajak will play “brilliant psychiatrist Roy Flemming, who hatches a plot with a perfect alibi to murder his neurotic and possessive wife.” Moore will play Lt. Columbo, “the seemingly bumbling detective who engages the psychiatrist in a cat-and-mouse battle of wits right up to the play’s surprising climax.”

Rob Duval will direct the play, which will also feature cast members Bryce Moore (Moore’s son, who has also followed in his footsteps as a reporter at KHON), Therese Olival, Amy K. Sullivan and Aiko Chinen.

Joe Moore and Pat Sajak
Joe Moore and Pat Sajak

This reps the ninth play that Sajak has performed with Moore, beginning in 1993 with Moore’s original play “Prophecy and Honor.” Other plays they’ve performed together include “The Odd Couple” (2001), “The Honeymooners” (2004), “The Boys in Autumn” (2010), “Wrestling Ernest Hemingway” (2014), “Dial M for Murder” (2018) and “The Sunshine Boys” (2023). Most of these performances have been at the Hawaii Theatre; in 2012, they also traveled to the Connecticut Repertory Theatre in Storrs, Conn., to perform “The Odd Couple” there.

“Prescription: Murder,” like their past plays there, will serve as a fundraiser for the non-profit Hawaii Theatre. Sajak and Moore have known each other since 1968, when they met and served together at the American Forces Vietnam Network in Saigon.

Moore is a legend in Hawaii, having worked in local TV since 1969, first as a sportscaster at KGMB before taking over as lead news anchor at KHON in 1980 — where he began an unprecedented run leading the market’s No. 1 newscast. That actually makes his tenure there even longer than Sajak’s remarkable 41-year career on “Wheel.”

During his tenure hosting “Wheel of Fortune” alongside Vanna White (who will continue on the show), Sajak has won the Daytime Emmy for outstanding game show host three times, with 19 total nominations. Ryan Seacrest is set to take over as host of “Wheel of Fortune” this fall.

Sajak told KHON last year, when he was in Honolulu for “The Sunshine Boys,” that ending his run on “Wheel” was “celebratory mixed with melancholy. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I’ve known that this was coming, and I talked about it with good friends and Joe and my family. So I’ve had time to get used to the idea. It’s not like I woke up the other day and said, ‘You know, it’s over.’ So there’s that. But it’s mixed emotions sure.”

As for his plans for the future, as he said back then, “I’m realistic enough to know the people aren’t gonna be banging my door down. But I’ll take projects if they come. But I suspect most of my time will be whittling on the front porch, but I don’t know how to whittle and I don’t have a front porch so that’ll be a challenge.”

Tickets to the run of “Prescription: Murder” are available here; and you can watch a promo for the play here.

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