Rich but rotten Carlton Larraby enjoyed punctuating the lives of his family with macabre little surprises. His latest joke is a Halloween party with everybody dressed as a character from Shakespeare. When the play begins, the bored guests have arrived and wait impatiently for their host to show up, unaware that he has been gruesomely bludgeoned to death in his study.

Since this is an audience-participation play, the murder is revealed to the audience before the characters of the play know about it. A sinister master of ceremonies named Mr. Hawker tells us—the audience—what has happened as, in a series of flashbacks, he lets us see the events surrounding the murder. Little by little, as we get to know the people of the drama, we begin suspecting who the murderer might be...only to discover that we're wrong. To help us further, Mr. Hawker invites us to view the clue-rich scene of the crime during intermission. And finally, near the end of Act II, he gives us the opportunity to question the characters.

"What made this gimmick fun, was watching the actors try to stay in character as they improvised answers to questions thrown at them...light-hearted fun [that] will be staged by community, college, amateur, and perhaps even professional theatres from here to Kokomo."—newspaper review of University of St. Thomas production in Houston, Texas.

All the ingredients of a deliciously frightening murder mystery are here—lightning, thunder, weird sounds, screams in the dark...plus the fun of letting the audience participate in solving the crime. As a critic pointed out, Much Ado About Murder provides a "whimsically entertaining night."

"The show has been a tremendous success."—Kathleen Dawson, Center Stage Players, Copenhagen, N.Y. (They held it over.)

Two acts; Set, Carlton Larraby's living room; Time, a Sunday afternoon.

See also: Mystery, Murder, and Mayhem, Audience-Participation Plays