Murder Mysteries & Me
My theatre’s program director has been trying to figure out next year’s musical, and she pitched this new one–unconfirmed for now–that I haven’t stopped thinking about. It’s a murder mystery. And there’s just something wonderful about murder mysteries that have defined my theatre experience thus far.
My first production with the program was my freshman year’s fall play, Clue; it felt magical. Clue was a murder-mystery, based on the characters from the Clue board game and the plot of the 1985 film.
I used to work on running crew for a total of four productions. And there’s this rule–don’t be seen, and stay out of the wings. If you can see the audience, they can see you. But my friends and I would tuck ourselves right behind the stage left curtain, angled just enough to catch the final scene and not get in trouble. We watched it every day, through that curtain, and we could quote every rewound confession.
Recently, the head stage manager and I talked about the marvel that was Clue, how we remembered the first time we walked into Theatre 70 and knew it was home, how we were glad that our first experience with AHSPA was with this intimate, hilarious show.
How nothing was going to top Clue.
But this year, there was The Play That Goes Wrong. A play-within-a-play, the show followed a clumsy drama society performing The Murder at Haversham Manor. With over-the-top physical comedy, and a small cast, I felt like I was reliving Clue. As Assistant Stage Manager, I had the opportunity to watch the show evolve from table reads into a real production. Through this show, I remembered how it felt to want to rewatch a scene and find new lines to laugh at. It became my new favorite. And funnily enough, it just so happened to be a murder mystery.
In December, our program had planned to take The Play That Goes Wrong to Lenaea Theatre Festival, and ironically, everything about the competition piece seemed to go wrong. Lenaea was my first chance to student-direct–better-yet, student direct alongside some of my closest friends, but we just didn’t have a show. While we urgently looked for an alternative to The Play That Goes Wrong, we found Don Zolidis’ How to Get Away with a Murder Mystery. And I can’t make this up–it was the only show that fit the exact number of characters, kinds of themes, and line allotment of The Play That Goes Wrong.
Lenaea became one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had creatively. With a roaring applause and gold rubric from the judges, I learned to see theatre from a director and set designer’s point-of-view, and I’ve gained a more holistic appreciation for the art.
All of this to say, there seems to be this hold that murder mysteries have on me, have on my love for theatre. Should next year’s musical be anything like the murder mystery plays of my past, I should be eternally grateful.
