The Night of January 17th.....................

EDWIN DROOD..................the audience picks the culprit.............

Andrew,

Agree that Death and Taxes was a blast.  We made the audience citizens of the town of Hendricks and they were attending under the sunshine laws that say every meeting must be public.  We had so much fun with it about 8 years ago, and have had comments recently from some of our patrons asking that we do it again.  We probably will open our next season with it.  I was Doc Bishop...

For a Christmas show, try Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of 'A Christmas Carol'. The characters (5 women, I think, 1 man, British accents) are attempting to perform a version of "A Christmas Carol" for the audience, but it's the most amateur production ever put on a stage: they haven't really rehearsed, they've written their own dialogue (much of it advancing their own personal agendas), they have to play all the characters with only the women and the lone male (who's supposed to be the stage manager but gets drafted to take the place of an actor who didn't show up), and they're dealing with the most recalcitrant and/or ridiculous bunch of props, costumes and set pieces that have ever graced a stage. Hilarious show, with lots of back and forth with the audience, a Christmas sing-along, and an absolutely great bit where an unsuspecting audience member is brought up on stage and has to take the place (and the lines) of a suddenly "disabled" actress. This requires whisking the audience member offstage, attiring him in a really ugly dress (we used a paisley muu-muu),equipping him with a wine glass and a purse, and sending him back out. The lines he had to say were safety-pinned inside the dress, tucked into the purse, and taped to the bottom of the wine glass. The bit finishes with a cast member shoving a guitar into his hands and then announcing to the audience that the reluctant "actor" would now perform Rodigro's Guitar Concerto in E Flat Minor. We always chose the biggest, burliest guy in the audience to do this with, preferably one with a beard. Tough show, between the number of lines, British accents, tons of props, and need for split-second timing, but well worth it.

For one that's good any time of year, try Lafferty's Wake. The premise is that the audience members are there to attend the wake of the recently deceased Lafferty, in decidedly Irish fashion. Along with the usual give and take between audience members and the cast, there's a "Pass the Potato" game and lots of singalongs of old Irish standards.

Both plays are available from Sam French.