Today we went to a special 50th birthday party that included a murder mystery dinner theatre. I use the term "theatre" loosely. Seeing as I have a Master's in Theatre Arts and have been involved in theatre almost all my life, I wouldn't truly call this theatre. It was basically a costume party where everyone had a specific character and clues were handed out in 4 rounds. There were no actors outside of those of us who were guests. Yet, it was fun to get dressed up and play the part of someone else. Why is that illusion of being something you're not fun? My character was Beatrice Boe, an exotic dancer and underworld associate. I passed on wearing the suggested stereotypical blonde wig.
The funniest thing about the whole evening was not all of us playing these over-exaggerated characters it was the fact that it all seemed vaguely familiar. Even though it was supposedly all made up, there was just something I recognized about the character names and some of the clues I heard. Finally it donned on me...
Back in high school my friend and I had purchased a "How to Host a Murder" game box and then invited friends over to "play it". We did the same thing, we got our character vitae and costume suggestions from the box and followed the directions which included questioning each other through four rounds of clues and secret character information. It was the same basic information, the mansion dinner theatre had just expanded it to be able to incorporate more characters (i.e. more paying customers). I found the whole thing a bit odd. First I think that's illegal--some copyright infringement for sure as there was no mention to the boardgame originators.
The funniest part of the whole evening is that one of the characters, Allison (Ali) Bigh is a murder mystery writer who is and as I listened to the clues come out, I remembered that I played Ali Bigh when we had "hosted the murder" back in High School. I've produced murder mystery dinner theatres before based on two murder mysteries I wrote "Murder at the Speakeasy" and "Murder on the Mind". I've directed "Murder on the Mind" in 3 different cities. So here I was years earlier playing a part of a writer and then in reality I go on to write murder mysteries and then later act in the same murder mystery again which is being run under the illusion of murder mystery dinner theatre and now I am writing again about my reality of having attended a murder mystery dinner theatre. Did you follow all that? That's my mind and my reality for today!
W: 2 miles? geocaching on the way to the murder myster dinner
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