Review: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG at Winspear Opera House

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, as the infamous Murphy is so often quoted. In THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG, just closed at the Winspear Opera House, nothing could be truer - and you will never laugh so hard because of it.

The show is the unfortunate (yet hilarious) tale of the Cornley University Drama Society and their attempt to stage a murder mystery play. Sadly, this Drama Society has not had much success in previous years due to lack of participation, but they are hopeful that this will be the year to turn all of that around. Chris Bean (played by Evan Alexander Smith) is the director, and acts as the majority of the technical roles, as well as plays one of the leading roles as Inspector Carter. The rest of the extremely amateur troupe is made up of Jonathan Harris (Yaegel T. Welch) as Charles the murdered, the forgetful Dennis Tyde (Scott Cote) as Perkins his butler, Max Bennett (Ned Noyes) as Cecil his brother, beautiful Sandra Wilkinson (Jamie Ann Romero) as Florence his fiancé, and Robert Grove (Peyton Crim) as Florence's brother Thomas. The tech crew who are running the show cannot be left out, either, with Trevor (played at this performance by Michael Thatcher) the Duran Duran-loving light and sound operator, and Annie (Angela Grovey) the stage manager.

Before the official show even begins, the drama and action start. Annie and Thomas are running around the stage - and through the audience - working to make sure everything is ready for the show to go on, including working set doors and props that hang properly on the set. As they shout and hurry about, they cause some commotion, drawing attention and prompting an audience member seated next to me to exclaim, "Oh! It's part of the show!"

In an effort to not give too much away, I won't describe the rest of the plot. But, needless to say . . . a lot of things go wrong. Pretty much everything goes wrong. This brilliant cross between Clue: The Movie and Noises Off is the best kind of slapstick and farce that you could hope for. As to be expected with any farce, there were pratfalls and mistaken identities, but THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG takes them to the extreme. The audience did not stop laughing, and there were several times the cast had to wait for them to calm themselves before they continued.

THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG continues their tour in San Antonio and throughout the US. Tickets and more information may be found at https://broadwaygoeswrong.com/tour.php.

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