On March 20 and 21, Logansport Junior Civic Theater will be holding their fourth annual murder mystery play, The Groom Has Cold Feet. The show is about the untimely murder of a local rich man, Albert Webster, the morning of his wedding day. He’s widely disliked by the town and faces a few death threats the day before his murder, so it becomes rather difficult to nail down the culprit.
There are several suspects, such as the bride’s ex-boyfriend and Albert’s reluctant best man, Virgil Buckley, Albert’s ex-girlfriend and saloon girl, Darleen Steep, the bride’s best friend, Gladys Clark, the farmboy desperate for a wife, Harley Stuber, and the bride’s angry mother, Hazel Blossom. It makes it rather difficult to pinpoint the culprit.
Sheriff Tickle brings along his daughter Sarah to help him investigate, and employs Milton as his deputy, who isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and isn’t very good at his job.
The show is chock-full of comedic moments and everyone involved shows passion for their characters and the crafting of the performance. The environment is very calm, and is a comforting precedent to the summer musical and winter fantasy.
“Coming out of Legally Blonde this year, it was so hype and stressful, especially playing Brooke Wyndham,” sophomore Toby Cook said. “I had never jump-roped a day of my life, and I’m asthmatic, so they double-whammied me so hard. So coming into this lax environment is very helpful.”
The show is rather low-key and has a much smaller cast than the summer musical tends to. It’s a wonderful opportunity to make new friends and have fun working on a stress-free show. JCT is available for students of all surrounding schools, be it LHS, Lewis Cass, Pioneer or Twin Lakes.
“My favorite part about acting in the murder mystery is working with all of these new people,” junior Ellison Kitchell said. “I think it gets a different group than what we usually have in the summer show, I think that’s kind of fantastic. It comes at a really good time of the year. March is kind of down season for a lot of actors around here, so I think it’s kind of wonderful to just hone our abilities and I think it gives a lot of kids confidence before they go audition for the summer show.”
However, it’s not just a play! Two of the three performances will be dinner shows.
“I personally believe it’s a two-in-one experience,” Kitchell said. “I came and watched the show the year before I started performing in them, and I fell in love. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh I have to do this next year.’ A dinner show is very unique for a theatre of our size and age group, it’s a very ambitious task and we always handle it very well. I think having a dinner atmosphere kind of lowers the stakes for the actors and the audience as a whole.”
On Friday and Saturday evening, dinner will be provided at 6:30, half an hour before the show starts. There will be garden salad, chili with fixings, peanut sandwiches, tea and lemonade. Tickets for the dinner shows are $25, and there are only 80 tickets per show, so grab them before they’re gone!
Saturday afternoon, there will be a matinee at 2:30 p.m. for which tickets are only $12. The 80 seat limit doesn’t apply so bring your families and friends! Tickets are currently on sale at Black Dog Coffee. If they don’t sell out, tickets will be available at the door.
“I think that the murder mystery is like watching YouTube while you eat dinner,” Cook said. “And I think that’s a lot more fun, because it’s interactive, like you’re not just staring at a guy talk about a topic you know nothing about, you’re watching children who have put in a lot of work perform something that means a lot to them and means a lot to their friends and their directors.”
