Murder mystery dinner theatre event at Soaring Eagle offers food, laughs
It was a night of mayhem, merrymaking, and murder.
Superheroes and supervillains were on display at the murder mystery dinner theater event "The Comic Book Killer" at the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort on Friday.
The comedic show, in which actors move around the dining room floor and interact with audience members, involves a lot of improvisation. One of the actors, Derek Dziak of Chicago, Ill. said it can be fun and challenging.
"It's something that stacks on one thing and stacks and stacks, and you want to keep it going as it goes on," Dziak said.
The interactive show, put on by Jest Murder Mystery Co., was held in the casino's Saginaw ballroom. The food was prepared by the casino's kitchen staff.
Despite bad weather conditions on Friday, more than 200 people attended the event, enjoying a three course meal while interacting with the performers.
The sold-out show was just one of many murder mystery dinner theater shows the casino has held in the past, many of which have been presented by Jest.
The show's premise was that all of the attendants were various superpowered do-gooders called together for a super hero meeting to decide how to defeat the evil Dr. Weevil, and his dastardly plot to shred the comic books featuring every superhero and super villain in the world, thus causing them to cease to exist.
Audience members can play along with the actors by picking name tags with such super heroic monikers as "Captain Strech-O" and "Suzie Soft Spoken". The audience then picks five "suspects" for the murder, who were audience members the actors interacted with earlier in the show.
Nick Whitney of Farwell, also known as the crusader "Fish Man", was an audience member chosen to re-enact the crime with the actors and other audience members.
Whitney, 32, said the most memorable part of the evening was being called upon to do a particular dance .
"My favorite part was trying to figure out the electric slide. I had never done it before," Whitney said.
Alexandra Gonzalez of Chicago, who played superheroine Psychic Woman, said that although it was a comedic event, she still felt a certain responsibility when getting people laugh to life and forget the challenges of every day life for a couple of hours.
"If you're going to escape, it should be taken seriously," Gonzalez said.
