PolterHeist

This weekend the Greenfield Education and Training Center, a Virginia Western Community College facility located in Botetourt, hosted a "Just Desserts" mystery theater event. They offered up a grand variety of sweets - Haunted Forest Pound Cake, Pumpkin Spice Cake, and Boooo cupcakes, to name a few. The play was put on by HaeBo Productions, an all-volunteer non-profit theatrical group established in 1997. They usually perform in the New River Valley.

I had never been to a murder mystery theater and it was on my bucket list of things to do.

I think about 50 people ended up attending this event.

We were seated at the far end and the large space made picture-taking a little difficult, especially since I was using my little camera.

The play was set at the Mouldering Pines Inn. The above is "Janet from another planet", the DJ for the gathering of the BOO group (that would be us the audience). Cameron Brown played this role.

The guy on the floor was Lionel Spector, a paranormalogist, played by Andy Bowyer. The fellow standing with the orange on his suit is Jim Lodge, the Mouldering Pines proprietor (played by Mathew Ridley), and his wife, Phyllis Lodge, is beside him (played by Crystal Farris).

The lady in the shawl is Madam Zelda von Schpookum (played by Samantha Quesenberry); the guy under the sheet is the proprietor trying to be a ghost.

Madam Zelda attempts to contact the spirits.

She succeeds and spends some time talking to an empty chair (sorry, I am suddenly reminded of Clint Eastwood at the R. Convention).

The fellow standing is Fox Smolder (played by Tucker Miller) and the woman is Dana Skullery (played by Brenna Bower). They are members of the Hex Files ... The Truth is Out There. Get it?

Anyway, I won't give a single thing away because maybe you will get to see these folks perform somewhere. I hope they return to Botetourt and do their thing again.

At the end, the members of the audience had to write down who they thought was the murderer.

My husband wasn't going to write anything down, though he said who he thought the murderer was (and was right in his guess). I suggested he put down something - I won't say what - but it was so far off the mark that he (ahem) won an award for being "Not the sharpest surmiser." But I thought it was a very creative answer myself.

When they announced the award, my husband shouted out, "She told me to write that!" and everyone laughed.

We had a good time.