A Brief Period Of Rejoicing

 
Picture: VE-Day Party, Birch Road, Romford
(Courtesy of Phil Steer, www.Romford.Org, and William Dale)

A Dinner Theatre Murder Mystery
by Jane Morris
 
What's it all about?
  • A murder mystery event in which the actors play a brief scripted scene, then mingle so that they can be interrogated by the audience / guests
  • Lazy Bee Scripts provides the opening script and character briefs  
  • The actors play the script then improvise their interactions with the audience
 
What's does Lazy Bee Scripts provide?
Lazy Bee Scripts supplies a pack of material for the performing company including:-
  • An Opening Script
  • A background brief for each character
    • Character description
    • Character history
    • Motivation
  • An "Organiser's Overview" including general staging guidelines
  • Final Script - the denouement! 
  • Additional materials
    • Solution sheets (for the audience to supply their guesses for "who dunnit")
    • A tie breaker question and answer
    • An MP3 file of the opening speech - the VE day broadcast of Winston Churchill!
Note that whilst Lazy Bee Scripts provides the opening and closing scripts - the set-up and the solution - the interaction with the audience must be improvised based on the character briefs!
 

What's a Dinner Theatre Murder Mystery?

  • The event is run as if the audience has been brought together for a special occasion
  • In this case
    • "Welcome to Eney Street!  It is June 1945 and everyone has been invited to join a street party to celebrate VE Day!"
    • The "audience" has the role of the VE Day revellers (and should be encouraged to dress in period costume)
  • The acting company perform a scripted opening scene, at the end of which a murder is discovered
  • The acting company mingles with the "audience", answering their questions
  • The audience try to spot the murderer
  • The acting company performs a final scripted scene in which the murderer is revealed
 
What's in this Mystery?

The Eney Street VE Day Party guests include

Edna Phillips - aged about 50, a widow from WW1, a very nervous lady
Bernard Phillips - aged 28, Edna’s son, a conscientious objector
Major Henry Thomas – aged between 50 and 55, pompous, upper class, walks with a stick because of a gammy leg
Grace Thomas – aged about 40, very stylish and classy lady, dresses well, thinks she’s a cut above the residents on Eney Street
Ivy Martin – aged about 25, a Land Army Girl, engaged to George
Joe W Flight – aged about 25, a very dishy American airman
Private George Evans – aged about 25, a down to earth squaddy who has seen action, engaged to Ivy
Len Cousins – aged about 55, a docker, saw active service in the trenches in WW1  

The party is interrupted when Bert Cousins, Len's son (and the local black-marketeer) is found murdered...