“Pollyticks as Usial” [mystery dinner]

This is my Idea, but you can steal it if you want…

THE GERM: On a recent post to my Idea Prompts blog, I suggested an Idea called “Killin’ Cousins”. It got me to thinking about a mystery dinner theatre that a friend of mine is a part of.

It was a group that I was a part of for a brief period, even rehearsing with them a couple of times. But my schedule wasn’t free enough, so I had to drop out.

Interactive dinner theatre may sound like a cheesy genre of writing (and themes like “Soprano’s Last Supper” are pretty cheesy), but the real fun is in improvising interactions with the audience.

There doesn’t need to be a lot of logic to a story, just lots of opportunities to poke fun at character types and society in general, all the while letting the audience in on the fun.

GERMINATION: My idea was to create a dinner theatre mystery that follows the standard format, but broaches new and fertile territory.

Tell the diners when they arrive that they’re at a Town Hall meeting where some great issue is to be debated by the local community. Leave the political parties out of it, and use a completely local issue with no connection to national politics.

In other words, remove the chance for specific lampooning, and look for ways to make fun of politicians in general, without stepping on anyone’s toes. It tends to polarize the audience instead of making them work together to solve a mystery.

A good idea would be the construction of a public works project that’s not currently being proposed to local voters.

WORKING TITLE: “Pollyticks As Usial”, or, “All Politics is Loco”
FORMAT: Interactive Mystery Dinner Theatre
GENRE: Corny Comedy
PREMISE: The Mayor is murdered during a Town Hall debate on a public works project.
SETTING: Large dinner, ostensibly a  public forum such as a Town Hall meeting
CHARACTERS: Exaggerated political types, such as the Southerner (think Senator Claghorn from Fred Allen’s radio show), or the corrupt New Jersey congressman.

TO GET YOU STARTED:

The politicos propose their ideas for the dam. Hidden agendas (spoken in loud asides to the diners) complicate the issue. One faction wants a dam because he has a secret gold mine below the site of the projected dam; he hopes the dam will prevent frequent floods.

Another faction owns a lot of prime land above the proposed site; with the dam in place, that land would be permanently underwater. Lots of other secrets can be divulged (accidently and humorously) by the 4 or 5 actors.

Right before the first intermission, the mayor disappears. The remaining actors begin hurling accusations and secrets – and lies – during the second segment of the evening.

Just before the 2^nd intermission, one of the characters tells everyone that the Mayor was murdered. The final segment of the night leads up to the revelation of who did it and why.

This doesn’t make much sense unless you’ve actually been to a murder mystery dinner, but they’re actually fairly easy to write because you’re writing for the lowest common denominator.

Coarse and simple, that’s the way to write a successful interactive mystery.

NOTE: If you’d like to develop this Idea further, just leave a Comment and claim it.

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