If there’s one thing that goes well with any dinner, it’s a good old fashioned whodunit.
And it just so happens that the Bektash Shrine Center is hosting such an event this Saturday.
This will be a night of family fun centered around eating a nice dinner and enjoying an entertaining mystery theater performance, the type of performance that includes a lot of pretty hilarious audience participation.
The show is called The Altos, which is a play on The Sopranos – in fact, the poster for the event says, “Like The Sopranos, only lower.”
The show is put on by The Majestic Theatre in Manchester, and they’ve worked with the Shriners for years performing similar shows, said Lloyd Doughty, chief rabban with the Bektash Shriners.
“We’ve done several of these with them in the past, and it’s always a fun night,” Doughty said. “It’s very interactive between actors and audience.”
These are real actors, and they have plenty of experience with these types of shows, so they really know how to get the audience into it. That means they know how to push the envelope and make things interesting, too.
“It’s one of those kinds of events where there’s a lot of interaction between players and audience, and it can be quite comical,” Doughty said.
The theme of the show is supposed to be spoof of the classic crime drama The Sopranos, but despite that show’s intense violence, language and general adult subjects, this one is much more family oriented.
“It’s very lighthearted, quite comical – just an awful lot of fun,” Doughty said.
The dinner – barbecue chicken, by the way, made by the chefs at Bektash – will be served at 6 p.m. before the show starts (doors will open at 5:30). A cash bar will also be open during that time, and some light snacks will also be available.
At 7:30, the show will begin. It will be presented like a play that you’d see at a theater, with different acts and scene changes and everything else a play might entail.
At the end of the performance, members of the audience will fill out a card saying who they thought the “killer” was – “That can get quite comical, too,” Doughty said. “In the spirit of the evening, some people get quite comical with their responses and it just adds to the flavor of the evening.”
Tickets, if purchased in advance, are $25 with dinner or $15 without dinner. Prices at the door will be an additional $5. Stop by the Shrine Center at 189 Pembroke Road or call 225-5372 for tickets.
Those who want to attend the show but don’t want dinner can arrive at any time – the cash bar will be open.
