Review: WHODUNIT? AN IMPROVISED MURDER MYSTERY at Contemporary Theater Company

I've been to plenty of murder mystery theatre and some improv but the thought of combining the two was something my family and I just couldn't pass up.  And we're infinitely glad about that.

Contemporary Theatre Company continues to push the envelope with this "Whodunit? An Improvised Murder Mystery" Saturday night, something they will feature each Saturday night for the next eight weeks.  

All the audience knows is that the performance is set in 1904 backstage at a Vaudeville Theatre.  Everything after that is all spontaneous dialogue that never hesitates to make us laugh out loud all night long.  I had brought my teens to see CTC's "Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge" a little over a month ago and they are still talking about that play.  I was hoping to recapture some of that rare magic for the teens and the rest of our family and we were not disappointed. 

The incredible cast includes the quiet serial killer type Seth Acton as Seamus Sawbones; the primadonna actress Nora O'Rama, played by Cathleen Carr; morbid twins Bernadette and Bathory Bedlam played by Madeline England and Laura Kennedy; the sparkly Magic Milly, played by Kenney Knisely; stage director Lonnie Goldsmith played by Max Rosmarin, the perfect straight man; Ryan Sekac and Christopher Simpson round out this wonderful cast as the incredibly funny Ilya Alexandrovich Razumovsky and Quickie Bulldozer.  The kids loved Sekac as Scrooge in "Binge" and he was just as good in this Improv murder mystery.  Quickie may have been one of the funniest, off hand characters any of us had ever seen.  When we met him after the play was over the family was awestruck and marvelled at the fact that his voice in the play, kind of like a slow drawl, was his actual voice!  "I'm a self-contained engine of entertainment" the former Major League Baseball player uttered before one of his bits. 

When one of the twins ended up dead to close Act 1, during intermission, the audience was given a form to see who they thought the murderer could be.  Very few were even close. 

Once the second half began, it was a humorous race against time to determine who the killer was and why.  Not that I would ever reveal any of these plot points, it's good for people to know that every Saturday night for the next eight weeks, "Whodunit? An Improvised Murder Mystery Event" will always different; different scenes, different killer and victim, etc.  It may also feature different characters as well as there were a number of actors in the booklet that were not in our performance. 

After the show, the kids were mulling the fact that they wanted to come back for another show, which has never happened before.  That's how much this production and the talented cast had for an impact on us and I'm sure we weren't alone.  

Whether you're into the murder mystery stuff or like a little improv, or hey-both of them!, this is a wonderful combination of the two and a very entertaining night for the whole family.  There is not much adult content but I would suggest kids 12 and older to fully grasp the story and the humor.  Our family laughed all night long and spent the whole hour car ride home talking about the performance, who the best actor was and whether we'd come back for another performance.  It's THAT good! 

Photo by Seth Jacobsen Photography

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