There are many sources - start with the Samuel French Catalog - they have a section on mystery theater. You can also find several sources on the web - The American Association of Community Theater - www.aact.org - has a listing under play sources.

Most of them have a stiff front charge and we felt it would take all of our profits out of the dinner so we wrote our own. It only uses one "actor" the Detective who comes in at the end to wrap things up. All the rest of the cast are people who came for dinner - even the murderer. It has a minimum of 15 cast members (diners) and a maximum of 36. We have done it four times and people have rated it a 4.8 on a 1 to 5 scale.

It took a lot of time to get all the parts written but we give each attendee a half sheet of paper that gives the outline of the mystery - who died, under what conditions, what is known and so on. We also give them a half sheet of paper that tells them who their character is and gives them some idea of who at ask questions of. We found that we need a person to hand out the cast bio's and answer questions. That person also watches to make sure everyone is participating - if we see someone standing around or not talking about the murder we give them a hint and tell them who to talk to. This is necessary to keep everyone involved.

When the Detective comes in (during dessert) s/he askes for people to tell who they think committed the murder. After we get several names they vote - then the detective puts together all the clues that have been there all night. About 1/4 of the people actually figure out who did it.

e-mail me a mailing address at atoi@seattletheater.net and I will mail you the package by snail mail.