You Have the Right to Remain Dead produced by Marshfield Community Theatre
The audience-participation murder mystery is playing at the Jubilee Theater Center in Marshfield, Missouri
Marshfield, MO | Sept. 16, 2022
Marshfield Community Theatre is set to explore the comedy of murder in their upcoming production of the audience-participation murder mystery You Have the Right to Remain Dead.
“This show is so much fun,” said Kelby Lorenz, MCT’s Marketing Director and the Production Manager for the show. “The cast is having fun put this show together, which I know will make the audience have fun when they see it.”
This show features a cast of 10, with those cast members ranging from those in their teens to adults and differing levels of stage experience. This range has provided a fun dynamic for first-time director, Susie Smith, as she works with them to put the show together. Smith is also the current secretary on MCT’s Board of Directors.
“We have people who have years of experience and some who this is the first time they’ve really been on stage,” she said. “So, it’s great being able to see what everyone is bringing to the table as we bring the pieces together.”
The show adds an extra layer in the fact that there is a show within the show. The internal show is set in the Deep South, where “nothing is what it seems.” As secrets begin to unfold within this show, things go south for the group when one of the actors turns up dead! Then, the director and a police officer quickly step in to stop the show, and the mystery has officially begun. Now the cast and audience need to figure out whodunnit. But the catch is this: the audience members are suspects too!
“That’s what makes this show so fun,” said Lorenz. “All of a sudden, you as an audience member are drawn deep into the show because you are a suspect, meaning anything is really possible.”
This interaction has added a lot of fun for the cast and has allowed them to push deeper as actors while developing the show.
“Each cast member has to know their character, the relationships that character has, the evidence against them and more in order for them to handle the audience participation,” said Smith. “So, it’s been fun getting to see the cast pushed in this way, and it’ll be really fun to see what happens when we get them in front of an actual audience who’s asking them questions.”
You Have the Right to Remain Dead will be playing at the Jubilee Theater Center on Oct. 6-8 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 9 at 2 p.m. Tickets are available online at marshfieldtheatre.org.
All show information:
You Have the Right to Remain Dead
Oct. 6-8 | 7 PM
Oct. 9 | 2 PM
Jubilee Theater Center
109 Commercial Street
Marshfield, MO
Adult Tickets: $10
Youth Tickets: $5
Tickets are available at marshfieldtheatre.org/right-to-remain-dead-tickets/
Show Synopsis
You’ve just settled down in a theatre to solve an audience-participation murder mystery. The narrator comes out and gives you a few “ins and outs” on what to look for in the play. The show starts and you meet Fat Daddy, a rich but vindictive southern gentleman with an equally conniving and scheming family. Then you’ll meet the others: Sweet Mama, Daddy’s pandering wife; Hyacinth, the daughter who’s always cleaning the family firearms; Earl the worm, or his overly amorous wife, Savannah; or Clete, the sullen handyman who, for some reason, is in the will? Once the murder occurs, the director comes on stage and the police arrive. Now you have to figure out whodunnit. And not only are you questioning the cast, but they are questioning you! Yes, you are a suspect as well! This frantic mystery-comedy will have audiences guessing until the last clue is dropped and the last ham overacts.
Learn more about the show from the publishing company, Dramatic Publishing.
About Marshfield Community Theatre
Marshfield Community Theatre is a non-profit organization located in Marshfield, Missouri, that produces live theatre productions for the 417 area. Their mission is to provide a creative outlet for the performing arts in their community through entertaining live-theatre productions produced by volunteers putting their heart in every show.