Solve a mystery with dinner with The Joliet Drama Guild
You’re engrossed in an archaeological lecture by a renowned Egyptologist when the room goes dark.
Fortunately, the lights come back on.
Unfortunately, the lecturer is dead, and a priceless artifact he was holding is gone.
That’s the premise for The Joliet Drama Guild’s “Murder in the House of Horrors Dinner Theatre,” being staged at 6 p.m. Oct. 16 and 1 p.m. Oct. 17 at the American Legion Hall in Joliet.
The $25 ticket, which must be purchased in advance, includes a chicken dinner, and the chance to outwit your fellow audience members in discovering the murderer.
The Joliet Drama Guild board member and seasoned actor and director Jordan Willner is directing the cast of suspects who get interrogated by an inspector.
“This show is very interactive, and we have a lot of very talented improvisational actors,” Willner said.
“When we read the script, I noticed there were a lot of improvisational sections and moments when actors had to come up with something off the top of their heads.”
Willner said he’s been doing exercises with actors during rehearsal to hone their improvisational skills, which he said were already very good before they started rehearsing.
“One game we like to play is a great character-building exercise,” he said. Actors sit in a chair while the others ask questions of the character. They ask simple questions first, such as their favorite color and then go to more detailed ones such as ‘why do you think the person was murdered?’
Willner also likes to give his actors leeway in expanding their characters. One character Willner envisioned as being “a normal, straight man reacting to all the oddities going on and all these weird characters. But the actor is bringing such gravitas to that character. He’s made the character so big and exciting. That’s amazing.”
The show takes place in modern times, but Willner said the audience will see some fun costuming, including one inspired by Indiana Jones.
All murder mysteries have a similar format. A murder is committed. The detective is called in. He conducts an investigation with the audience getting clues through the early scenes to help them unravel the mystery. The end is the big reveal when the audience learns if they were right.
In the October mystery, suspects include an array of interesting, quirky characters such as the museum financier and her attorney, the ex-wife of the man who got murdered and a shy, timid technical director of the museum.
Willner also portrays one of the suspects. “My character is Gahiji Amun. He is an Egyptian ambassador and he and his sister, Isis, are coming to the lecture at the Hamilton Museum to put shame upon the archaeologist,” Willner said. In other words, they’re trying to prove he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
As the inspector gathers clues, the audience starts
thinking about who did it and then gets to interrogate the actors during an intermission. Actors respond truthfully to help the audience solve the mystery.
“There’s a scene in the show when the detective lines all the actors up and puts them in seats,” Willner said. “Then he will have an audience member come up and try to prove who committed the murder.”
Though the script offers clues so the audience can
make an educated guess, Willner said he didn’t figure it out when he first read the script.
But now he and the actors all know who’s guilty.
“That’s the fun part of this kind of theater,” Willner said. “We have such fantastic actors who are just having a blast and going along with whatever happens.”
The Joliet Drama Guild partners with the local
American Legion to present some of its shows. In April, the guild staged a murder mystery dinner at the legion called “Murder at the Malt Shop,” that takes place in the 1960s. “It was retro. There was a lot of dancing involved. We had some of the actors and some audience members do the hokeypokey. That was hilarious,” Willner said.
Literally the moment we started selling tickets, they sold out. So the American Legion asked if we’d do another one around Halloween,” Willner said.
“Murder at the Malt Shop” had a cast of characters who had good reason to kill the victim, and the victim wasn’t very likable, Willner said.
What’s different about the October show is that “the murder victim is not a complete jerk,” he said. So you have to dig deeper to discover the murderer.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Willner said. “It’s a perfect family show. Bring the kids. Bring your grandma.”