This past weekend we had the premiere presentation of our interactive murder mystery, Whispers in a Dark Manor. I’d venture to say that it was overall a success.
When talking with a local hotel to use their conference room for a performance, they expressed interested in doing a murder mystery dinner. We agreed, and I set about finding a good one.
I quickly discovered that existing products in this area fall into two categories: bad and expensive. So in order to proceed, I decided to create my own.
Having worked in theatre for 47 years, taught for 31, and offered playwrighting numerous times, I thought it would be easy. And it turned out I was right! Over the course of a weekend I created the basic scenario, to which I added refinements over the next few weeks.
I also used AI for supplemental information. It created backstories for some of the characters, wrote letters that audience members would find lying around, and even supplied most of the title. I mushed a couple of ideas together to come up with our title.
We had a few rehearsals, and the actors added much more content and backstory to the scenario. I’m looking forward to adding this supplemental material to the scenario for the next time we do it. (Not to mention, I could sell this for a hefty sum.)
As for the actors, most had never done anything like this, being familiar only with scripted community theatre—and here we were asking them to improv almost everything! But, as I said, opening night, some of the most exciting circus performers work without a safety net, but they certainly had one, with their fellow actors and the story to be told.
On further reflection, I guess that suggests that, with that safety net, it wouldn’t be that exciting. But they seemed to respond favorably to that.
With luck and scheduling, we’ll repeat the experience in two months or so, and see what happens.
MUSOFYR 