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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
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| 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
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| 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
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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!
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| 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! |
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What's a Dinner Theatre Murder Mystery?
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- The event is run as if the audience has been brought together for a special occasion
- In this case
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"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)
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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
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| 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...
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