We made an original Murder Mystery Dinner Theater show and performed it at the American Legion Hall in town. Below is the director's note explaining a bit more about how that production came to be.
What is Civic Theater?
At a baseball game last year, a friend suggested that the Civic Standard ought to put on a classic murder mystery dinner theater show. I laughed— and then thought about it, and then thought about it some more. Why not try?
So, we invited a bunch of funny people to meet every week in deep winter to craft the plot and storyline and characters. I interviewed local officials about zoning processes. We put out a call for auditions and people joked about maybe showing up, or seriously imagined themselves doing it, and many actually did. We adjusted roles in order to fit in more people. We tried to convince each other about what would be the right thing to have for dinner. We got lots of help to figure out how to make everyone audible in a room that was not intended for theater. And we rehearsed and discussed the story and made a lot of edits and rehearsed some more.
All this time, and all over town, we talked about the project with everyone we met. And then you all bought tickets and made plans with your friends, and now we’re all here for the big event. But the event has actually been going on this entire time, since that very first conversation at the baseball game. Every step is a celebration of working together and an opportunity to interact.
This is what we mean by Civic Theater. We hope you enjoy the show.
~Rose
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