Local actor, author and poet Rachael Lord has written an immersive, interactive murder mystery titled “Murder Down the Aisle.” It’s being performed in the Broadway Palm dining room, where patrons discover that they’re invited guests at the wedding-gone-awry of Ben Wolowitz and Katie Darling.
Cameron Rogers plays the best man … and homicide detective Ronald Paisley. He described the play like this:
“It’s got all of the chaos of a Tony & Tina’s with the intrigue of an Agatha Christie.”
There’s also an element of Clue and the Murder Mystery Dinner Train.
“We have ballots for the audience to fill out with who they think is the murderer, what they think the murder weapon is, and there is a prize for people if they can get it exactly right,” Rogers added. “It does get solved, rest assured. There are multiple endings, but it does get solved every night.”
Steffen Whorton plays a wedding planner who may or may not have any experience staging a wedding. But he knows good writing when he sees it. In his estimation, Lord’s plot, characters and prose make “Murder Down the Aisle” special.
“Her dialogue is very fun. Very witty. Very quick,” Whorton said. “It’s very Sorkin-esque in that way. The wit is written into it, which allows you to look a lot smarter, a lot funnier, a lot quicker than you may be naturally. Which kind of forces us to raise our game for wit and cleverness when we’re doing improvisational moments with the audience.”
Audiences are loving “Murder Down the Aisle.”
“Murder Down the Aisle” runs through Aug. 9 with performances each week, Wednesday through Saturday. For tickets, telephone 239-278-4422 or visit https://broadwaypalm.com/shows/murder-down-the-aisle/.
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“Murder Down the Aisle” immerses audiences in the action from the moment they enter the dining room. There, they’re greeted by Steffan Whorton, who asks whether they’re with the groom or the bride’s party.
“He’ll ask them questions like ‘How do you know Ben?’ or ‘How do you know the bride?’ and things like that,” Rogers pointed out.
“Because this is an immersive show, the audience really does affect the overall story,” Whorton interjected. “Their energy feeds into what we are able to do with them much more so than in a mainstage show. So I am immediately trying to gauge who is responsive, who is much more reserved.”
That’s because several members of the audience will be given lines to say at various points in the show, and it’s up to Whorton to decide which audience members would be best suited to those brief, but very public, interludes.
“They actually become characters in the show, but they don’t know that until they get here,” Whorton explained. “I select them based on the very brief interaction that I get with them in the first few minutes of meeting them. So it’s important to size up who will be able to handle the responsibility of being able to speak in front of other people because it can get alarming quickly.”
In fact, the playbill reinforces the fact that the audience is part of Ben and Katie’s wedding.
“You have been cordially invited to share in this celebration of love and commitment," it tells them. “ Whether you are on the groom or the bride’s side, we hope you’ll enjoy the party, the romance, and the show … or rather the ceremony and reception to follow!”
The playbill goes on to alert them to the fact that they will also play a role in solving a crime that is about to take place before their eyes.
“Throughout this evening, many curious events will occur,” the playbill continues. “This is your opportunity to put the pieces together to figure out whodunit. Keep an eye out for clues, suspicious activity and any suspects – they may be sitting at your table. Feel free to interrogate the suspects yourself. Perhaps you will win tonight’s Dynamic Detective Award, which goes to the person that solves the mystery. Is that you? Can you solve the Murder Down the Aisle?”
According to Rogers and Whorton, some audience members really respond to the chance to be part of the play.
“We’ve had some real characters come through, whether it be through adding lines where there weren’t lines before or being masters of improv and keeping a conversation going just like it was nothing,” Rogers said, laughing.
“Audiences are loving the show,” Whorton added. “Even the ones that are quieter at the beginning of the night, by the end of the show, we’ve generally got people hooked. Like Cameron said, there are often times where audience members add lines that weren’t given to them. They just completely start ab libbing in the moment. And sometimes that can be frustrating because it can throw the flow of the show off, but it’s actually quite fun to see people that invested, that engaged in what we’re trying to bring to them.”
Chaos is also built into the very fabric of the show.
“A lot of things go wrong,” Rogers said. “There’s a wedding planner who may or may not have experience. There’s a meddling mother-in-law that is a little too obsessed with her son. And from there, it all comes to a head when somebody dies at the wedding, and then a detective is called in to find out who killed the person who dies.”
It’s true. Ben and Katie’s big day takes a deadly turn when someone drops dead at the altar. Wisecracking detective Ronald Paisley must solve the mystery in this modern, roaring whodunnit. From a paranoid groom and a bitter bridesmaid to an overbearing mother, an inept wedding planner, a shady priest, and a questionable pianist, “Murder Down the Aisle” promises an evening of laughter, mystery, and delicious food.
“Because I play the detective for most of the show,” said Rogers, “I feel like the audience has a direct impact on me as a performer because I’m the one bringing them up for questioning when they’re characters who have been given lines. You can have a little bit of fun with them when they’re sort of not responsive or they’re being quiet. You can sort of poke fun at them. Give them their little jabs. If they’re pretty talkative, you can have your back and forth with them. It’s been a lot of fun because no two shows are the same because of the audiences that we have. Improv is definitely a skill you really need for this part.”
In addition, Rogers’ character has to be inappropriate at times.
“He’s a wisecracker even when the situation doesn’t call for it,” Rogers observed “He tries to be funny even when he’s not funny at all. So it’s been very fun.”
In addition to usher, Whorton plays the venue’s wedding planner.
“The one who may or may not have any experience,” he said, laughing. “The strength of my character is the caricature of it. Last year, I got to do ‘Murder on the 19th Hole’ and that was a much more straight-laced, straight-man character in the Vaudeville sense. This one is much looser, much zanier, much bigger. I get a lot of opportunity for creative moments with this character.”
Whorton said that playwright Rachael Lord is a big reason for the show’s success.
“She is a published author. She is a poet. She is an actress second to none. Just one of my favorite people in the world,” said Whorton. “And I think having done the murder mystery last year, she knows the venue, she knows the setting, she knows how audiences are generally going to react to certain things. She is able to kind of mold this show for the space. It feels very much like putting on a glove coming into this. To get to be a part of this show is an absolute honor. To get to do this and to be able to bring her vision to life has been one of the great honors of mine.”
In addition to playing Detective Ronald Paisley, Rogers also plays Ben’s best man. Rogers’ acting credits include “SpongeBob SquarePants” at Broadway Palm, Anthony for Lab Theater in “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” the CFABS Youth Theatre’s production of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” Chevalier Raphael Danceny in Laboratory Theater’s production of “Dangerous Liaisons,” “The Sound of Music” at Broadway Palm, Rapunzel’s Prince in “Into the Woods” at Florida Rep, the groom in “The Wedding Story,” one of three single-act plays comprising the Alliance for the Arts’ production of “Auditions, Diners and Weddings,” Brad in Richard O’Brien’s “Rocky Horror Show” for New Phoenix Theatre, Gus P. Head in Lab Theater’s production of Terrence McNally’s “It’s Only a Play,” Ash in “Evil Dead/The Musical” at Lab and as Roger in “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” at Cypress Lake High School.
Steffen Whorton was last seen at Broadway Palm as Mal Beineke in “The Addams Family.”
Kiana Raine Cintron is the bride, Katie Darling. Cintron’s credits include “Buddy Holly,” “A Christmas Carol,” “Swing” and “The Addams Family” (for which she was also understudy for Wednesday Gomez) at Broadway Palm, as well as “Footloose,” “Sister Act,” “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat,” the seamstress and work in the ensemble of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” “A Chorus Line,” dancing in the ensemble of Broadway Palm “Thru the Decades” and “In the Heights” (Prather Entertainment), Wanda in “Escape to Margaritaville” (Prather Entertainment), Sonia in “Godspell,” Dance Captain in “Newsies!” (Florida Repertory Theatre), Nina Zarechnaya in Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” (FSW Theatre Program), “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” (in which she portrayed seven different characters (FSW Theatre Program)), Tilly in “She Kills Monsters” (FSW Theatre Program), the Assistant Choreographer Lara in “A Chorus Line” (Florida Rep Conservancy) and Claire in “This Random World” (FSW Theatre Program). She was also a shadow dancer in Florida Rep’s “Spring Awakening.” Striving to be well-rounded, Kiana served as teaching artist for “Annie,” “Aladdin,” “Anything Goes” and “The Wizard of Oz” at Florida Rep and stage manager for FSW’s production of “Wellesley Girl” and recently choreographed “In the Heights” for the Alliance Youth Theatre.
Cooper Stone is making his Broadway Palm debut in the role of the groom, Ben Wolowitz.
The rest of the cast includes Shannon Connolly as Naomi Wolowitz, Chris Durso as Rusty Naylor, Brad Chidester as Paddy O’Chair, Danice Murray as Taylor Switz and Nayda Baez as Taylor Switz’s understudy.
Paul Bernier directed and Rose Ella McCleary served as costume designer.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
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