Players: Madeline, Brandon, Jack, Tim

Playset: bREAK A LEG

Our Would-Be Stars:

(1) Dee-Dee "The Director" Sanchez, illustrious director of a mystery dinner theatre company in a small town. Impressively full of herself.

(2) Leroy Jenkins, Dee-Dee's cousin, star of her mystery dinner theatre production. Giver of rousing speeches, receiver of familial favoritism, obnoxiously tall and handsome and you know, whatever. Impressively full of himself.

(3) Alice Gray, stage name "Dorian Gray," Leroy's understudy. Got the part by...well... Also, incidentally, impressively full of herself.

(4) Markus Shaw III, owner of the restaurant and building that houses the dinner theatre, also the company's financier. Impressively full of....well, you get the picture.

What Went Down:

Our mystery dinner theater company's theme is Noir. Leroy, the gumshoe, follows the clues every night to reveal the *gasp* surprise culprit. Alice, having slept with Markus...repeatedly...to get her part as Leroy's understudy, has never had a chance to be on stage. As it happens, Alice and Markus are not the only unadvisedly sexually active individuals in this building. Apparently, damn never everyone who works for the theatre or restaurant is screwing someone on the premises, which has prompted a fantastic business idea for Dee-Dee and Mr. Shaw. Hidden cameras (complete with sound and everything!) are located in every room and back-alley. Unfortunately for Mr. Shaw, that includes his office. Dee-Dee makes a (half-threatening) deal with Alice to give her a second lead in the next production if she works a little extra Alice-magic with the pompous financier.

And so a blackmail is born.

Markus, you see, is married, to Martha. Martha happens to be the one who really has the money in the family. Dee-Dee would like for a very generous percentage of that money to be pumped into her little theatre company. And Markus would like for his wife to not have to see, well, disturbing things...that might incidentally disown him. But as more and more pressure is put on ol' Markus the 3rd, he decides to give his blackmailers the finger, and has his own building demolished. He also hires a twelve-year-old hacker to steal all of the sex tape footage from Dee-Dee (along with all her money).

It seems like the perfect plan, except that Alice is feeling just a little scorned about now. Being a logical person, she does the rational thing, and takes apart Markus's house with a metal baseball bat...except for his TV, which she puts to good use showing his wife the last remaining copy of their (rather kinky) sex tape.

Martha, unfortunately, is not a connossieur of adulterous erotica.

How It Ends For Everyone:

Dee-Dee: After an unsuccessful attempt to get her money back from Markus (unfortunately it was seized by the Department of Homeland Security), she becomes a high school drama teacher, then promptly loses that job after terrifying a poor girl with a heart condition. She ends up in Los Angeles, with a bunch of new sex tape footage shot from the windows of big-rigs while hitch-hiking across our fine country. She then gets hired again (somehow) as a high school drama teacher, and ultimately lands a job as the director of another mystery dinner theatre company!

Alice: After getting fired from Hooters (arguably not a bad thing), she attempts to make money by giving rousing oratories on a street corner. Realizing the lack of appreciation for art in this town, she then puts her acting skills to better use as a late-night knife-wielding mugger. On one of her worse days, she stumbles drunk into an elementary school drama production and berates the children on stage for their foolish dreams. And that pretty much sums up the story of her life from there on.

Markus: Ends up in federal prison (Yay!...Wait, is that the wrong response?) where he begins to make connections with the Mob. Nearing the end of his five year sentence, things are looking pretty good, until there is a hostile regime change. The new Mob bosses aren't too psyched with his pandering ways, and break his legs...and his jaw...and take one of his eyes. When he is released, he begs on street corners for change...until one day a little girl is chided by her mother to stay away from that "filthy man." Her mother...is Martha.

Leroy Jenkins: Comes out on top. After his time recovering in the hospital from falling into a hole on the demolition site while searching for his entrusted copy of the famous sex tape, he moves to L.A. There he spends a little time doing Off Broadway theatre in sunny Cali, until he gets the call! It's his Big break on Broadway in the Big Apple! He gets a fan base and a nice little name for himself, and lives happily ever after..........................Bastard.

Thank you to Brandon, Jack, and Madeline for joining with me in this educational experience learning the true value of mystery dinner theatre...and to you, the reader, for making it all the way to the bottom of another one of my never-ending writeups.