Pleasant Home Program Director Sarah Najera wasn’t quite prepared for the success of her first interactive murder mystery last February.
“Victim in Vaudeville,” written by Najera and featuring a cast of local performers and a vaudeville show-within-a-show, sold out its first night as well as the hastily booked second night.
Now Najera has written a new version of the show with new vaudeville acts, new suspects, new motives and a new murderer for the audience to uncover, but featuring many of the same cast members. And this year she has booked three nights for the production — Feb. 16-18.
“I love mysteries, especially Sherlock Holmes stories,” Najera said. “And Pleasant Home, an elegant mansion with many rooms, is the perfect setting for an old-fashioned murder-mystery.
“But it was the opportunity to make vaudeville performers part of the story that was particularly appealing. First, because the turn-of-the-last-century era is perfect for Pleasant Home, and second because my grandfather was a vaudeville dancer on the Midwest tour circuit.” A dancer and choreographer herself, Najera is affiliated with Oak Park’s MOMENTA dance company and currently directing the original ballet “Melodious Marco” there.
The concept for this year’s “Victim in Vaudeville” remains basically the same. While touring the Midwest in 1907, a vaudeville troupe has been invited to stay at Pleasant Home, where the company manager has been murdered. The famed detective Otis Herschel (Oak Park attorney and actor Kevin Bry) has been called to the mansion to find the murderer, with the help of the audience. First, he introduces the six subjects by inviting them to perform their acts. Then he questions them. Next, the audience, which has been provided with an incomplete list of clues, has the opportunity question the suspects and compare notes with other audience members during an hour-long, cocktail-party-like interlude (including hors d’oeuvres and an open bar). Then, after making their best guess about the identity of the murderer, the audience hears a final monologue by the detective, who reveals all the facts and the name of the guilty party. Finally, a winner is randomly selected from all the correct ballots, with free admission to all the Silent Movies on the Porch programs at Pleasant Home in August.
In addition to writing and directing “Victim in Vaudeville,” Najera also designed the costumes — all in black and white and gray to emulate a vintage movie.
“I love history and I’m a stickler for details,” Najera said.
Asked if she was surprised at how popular the first show turned out to be, Najera said she was, at first, until she saw how much fun people were having during the first performance. Aware that interactive murder-mysteries are popular at night clubs and private parties, Najera said she attended a few to pick up some tips on how to disseminate clues. She said her research came in handy, however (along with a trial run of the show in a private home), when it came to figuring out how make the mystery “challenging, without being maddening.”
“Last year, half the people solved it,” she said. “I was thrilled at that, because it meant it wasn’t too easy or too hard.”
‘Victim in Vaudeville’
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 16-18
Where: Pleasant Home, 217 Home Ave., Oak Park.
Tickets: $45, $40 for Pleasant Home Foundation members
Information: 708-383-2654; www.pleasanthome.org
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