Summer reading came to a dramatic conclusion at the Soldotna Library on July 29. That’s where an interactive murder mystery brought a tale inspired by the American Revolution to help attendees engage with the era in a new way.
The Soldotna Public Library had closed for the evening, but it was still teeming with activity. Around fifty people participated in an immersive, whodunnit theater performance that sent them around the building in search of a fictional murderer.
The library partnered with Triumvirate Theatre to put on the show. Unlike a traditional play, immersive theater asks attendees to participate in the performance, by interacting with characters, moving between sets and predicting the story’s resolution.
This show is set during a women’s rights convention, where a progressive speaker was shot to death before taking the stage.
There’s no single performance space, but the library’s fireplace acts as a sort-of hub space for major narrative developments. Actors mingle with attendees, sharing hints about who they are, what they believe and how they relate to one another. Scenes play out the midst of the audience. People are encouraged to ask actors questions and share the clues they’ve gathered.
There are family dynamics and other relationships at play, but it's the political discourse that drives much of the action.
Some characters favor advancing equality in a new age. Others take a more regressive stance.
The tenor of the evening changes after the climactic scene everyone knows is coming.
After a speaker is killed, the audience is set free to identify the killer. They have to determine motive and opportunity. They look through “bedrooms” made up within the library’s study rooms. They find threatening notes hidden in a vanity and coded messages in art. They work to decipher the clues along characters in the show — frighteningly aware that one of those characters is a murderer. Was this young woman killed for her outspoken political beliefs?
At the end of the night, the attendees cast ballots to identify who they think is the culprit.
Soldotna High School student Lucia Micciche wrote and directed the show. She said it’s a challenge to write and to perform because actors are engaging with an audience who don’t follow a script.
“It’s mostly improv, so anything can happen,” she said.. “I wrote it, but you can only write so much because there’s so much variability that can happen”
Key scenes and sequences are scripted, but the show is otherwise fluid.
Micciche said she had to craft clues for people to catch on to, and red herrings to mislead them. When audience guesses got ahead of the plan, she said parts of the script were abandoned.
“The really hard part was making it so it was only possible that one person could have done it,” she said. “Because anyone realistically could have.”
The evening culminated in a fittingly over-the-top series of reveals. Several characters were accused of murder, with clues pointing in their direction.
A young woman is found with the victim’s necklace in her purse, but she didn’t kill her. A columnist penned threatening letters, but that doesn’t prove malice.
In the end, it’s a case of mistaken identity. The young woman's dad took off his glasses and intended to shoot one of his daughter’s suitors. But the suitor’s blue coat looked like his daughter’s blue dress. And he shot his daughter by mistake.
Todd Sherwood played the dead woman’s father – and accidental murderer.
Sherwood said it’s unusual, but exciting, to push the boundaries of performance with audience participation. He said the interactive mystery isn’t different from scripted theater because it’s still about identifying a character and how they’ll react to the situations they’re thrown into.
That approach motivated how he interacted with other characters and with attendees who pressed him for clues.
“They were getting into it, and they’re not afraid to ask questions,” he said. “I want to go to one where I’m in the audience now!”
Kim McMilin said the murder mystery is a major success for the library. She coordinates much of the library’s adult programming and said the production began as a far-fetched idea and blossomed into a collaborative production. Soldotna businesses Lucy’s Market and AK Big Sipper donated prizes and refreshments.
“It was very well received by the community, and we’re hoping to do it again,” she said.
McMilin said the library strives to be a community hub, in all the different ways that idea manifests. Sometimes that’s being a source of information and good reads, other times that’s bringing in other groups and providing the space for something exciting and new.
