Whodunit?
Well, a lot more people than before, which means the Perry Players Theatre is not dead. In fact, it is alive and kicking … kicking off a whole new season, that is, on Friday with the premiere of the Agatha Christie murder mystery “The Mousetrap.”
Shows on Friday, Saturday, Sept. 19-20 and Sept. 26-27 begin each night at 7:30. There are two Sunday showings Sept. 14 and Sept. 21 beginning at 2:30 each afternoon. The theatre is located at 909 Main St.
What was the mystery of the summer was the future of Perry Players. With an addition of new board members, things turned around quickly to the point where the theatre itself has a new interior look and a slate of performances on the schedule that, according to “Mousetrap” director Carol Strandburg, will appeal to everyone’s taste of music and comedy.
“The most obvious thing people will see when they come in is the lobby,” said Strandburg. “That’s been repainted, cleaned, buffed and shined. Hopefully a fresher look. We cleaned the whole theatre. That’s been a good shot in the arm for the people who work here, to come into a place that looks new.”
“We’re making a comeback,” said one of the new board members, Hunter Hufnagel, who also plays Det. Trotter in “The Mousetrap.” “We’ve revamped the season. We’ve revamped our policies. We put a new board together. We’ve cleaned out backstage. We’ve got new ideas going. We’re getting youth involved.”
“We also had some really nice donations,” said Strandburg, addressing the No. 1 concern after the 2013-14 season ended. “We were always fiscally O.K. Now we are in a better position. We made a real push to sell our season and patron tickets. That’s very critical to any theatre group.
“We hope people will come out and enjoy the first show. They can convert their tickets into season tickets. A good audience will grow from those season ticket holders, because they will bring friends. We hope we get a commitment from the citizens of Perry who want to see us be here and support us.”
What kind of shows does Perry want to see in a live theatre? At the start, they present a murder mystery play in “The Mousetrap” that has run in England for 62 years in a row.
Then, Strandburg said they decided that, even though these are more costly to produce, they would take the chance and stage a musical. “Oliver” will be the show to run in November with auditions coming up soon (Sept. 20 and 22-23).
Since “All in the Family” was a big hit last fall, Perry Players will do “Fawlty Towers,” John Cleese’s British series. To wrap up the season, Perry Players presents “Room Service,” a comedy farce.
“We tried to keep it light and throw in the musical,” said Strandburg.
“We have new people who are getting involved,” said Hank Hudson, president of the Board of Governors. “One of our biggest problems before was people. We had five people doing everything from cleaning floors to bathrooms to building sets for a couple of years. Now we have people doing jobs where one person was doing three or four at a time. We have 15 on the board now.”
Back to “The Mousetrap,” a story set in 1950s England at a guesthouse during a snowstorm. The murder takes place at the onset, then things switch to the hotel run by Giles (Gary Henderson) and Mollie (Jenna Henderson). Guests begin arriving, like Christopher Wren (Mo Jacobs), Ms. Casewell (Emily Bodony), Major Metcalf (Bill Andrews) and Mrs. Boyle (Jaloo Zelonis).
“This is top notch,” said Strandburg about the set. “We spent a lot of time looking at English properties. You can immediately see where we are. Look at the telephone. It doesn’t have push buttons on it.
“It is a well written whodunit. All of the characters are presented individually. They are not caricatures of people. They are very interesting. They know somebody in the house is going to be murdered and the murderer is in the house. We don’t find out until the end who it is, yet the audience is given an opportunity – thanks to Ms. Christie’s wonderful writing – to decide in their own mind who might have done it.”
And you won’t know unless you come see the show for yourself. Go to perryplayers.org for more details.
“We have a nice mixture of actors,” said Strandburg, who has directed more musicals, but enjoys plays much more. “We have some brand-new actors. We have some well-seasoned actors who have done work here and other theatres in central Georgia. It’s what we were and what we want to be in the future.
“We talk about who these people could have been during that time period. London was devastated after (World War II). All these people come to this manor house, and there’s a story behind each character.”
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