It’s been a long hiatus, but the game is once more afoot for the Winding Rivers Arts & Performance Society’s theatre group.
More precisely, The Game’s Afoot, or, Holmes for the Holidays. The murder mystery/comedy by Ken Ludwig is the group’s next play, and rehearsals started three weeks ago. It’s been three years since the last WRAPS theatre production, when Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced hit the stage at the HUB. We usually average a play a year, but the pandemic brought live theatre to a grinding halt, and almost stopped Murder dead in its tracks, back in March 2020.
Production dates are selected well in advance of production starting: actors can afford to miss a few rehearsals here and there, but WRAPS doesn’t have the luxury of understudies, so everyone needs to be available once the dress rehearsals and opening night come round. We had decided on a run of five performances of A Murder is Announced from March 12-15, 2020 long before those dates, with no idea that we were all about to enter the world of COVID. We did our last performance on March 15 as scheduled, took down the set on March 16 … and on March 17 the world as we knew it shut down. Had we decided on a run that was only one week later, all our rehearsing would have been for nought.
That’s the main reason WRAPS has waited so long before committing to another play. Dozens of people on stage and behind the scenes volunteer hundreds and hundreds of hours of their time for each production, and the thought of being shut down, or having to vastly curtail the number of audience members at each performance, made us hesitate. We needed to be sure things would go as planned, hence the long wait.
Once we decided, late last year, to go ahead with a production in spring 2023 we had the small matter of deciding what play to choose. Murder mysteries are always popular, as is Sherlock Holmes, and WRAPS audiences appreciate some humour, so it wasn’t long before The Game’s Afoot came to our attention as a vehicle that blended all three. Ludwig’s play won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America as the Best Play of 2012, and it takes a real-life person — celebrated actor and writer William Gillette, who wrote an immensely popular play about Sherlock Holmes and played the great detective to huge acclaim — and surrounds him with an assortment of fictional characters, one of whom (it appears) is trying to murder him.
In best murder mystery fashion, all the suspects and the would-be victim find themselves stranded at Gillette’s Connecticut castle, cut off from the rest of the world by a snowstorm. It doesn’t stop an intrepid police inspector from making it to the scene of the crime, and she and Gillette find themselves in a race against time to figure out whyat’s going on and prevent a killer from striking.
As you can gather, there’s plenty of mystery, murder, and mayhem, as well as a healthy dose of comedy: several of the guests are actors, who take any opportunity to play to the audience, and one of them is a preening society columnist who, as she reminds them all, can make (or break) their careers. There is also Gillette’s scatter-brained mother, and the great man himself, who seems to have trouble separating himself from the famous detective he plays on stage. A bunsen burner, several weapons, an annoying dog, and a séance all feature. And did I mention the play-within-the-play?
At the table read, which is where the actors gather to have a first read-through of the play together, there are some new faces amidst the returning WRAPS veterans, and they are welcomed with open arms. During the pandemic hiatus some of our regular actors have left us, so we’re glad to have new blood to take up the torch.
As is occasionally the case, we have had trouble filling one of the roles: Simon, an actor in his mid- to late-twenties. Amatuer and community theatre never seems to have any trouble finding acttresses, but actors — especially in their 20s and 30s — are harder to find. At the last minute, however, Drew Johnson steps in to play Simon, opposite another one of our newcomers, Jheanelle Roebbelen as Aggie.
Richard Wright brings with him actual West End of London theatre experience, and is playing William Gillette. References to the police in the play are met with laughter, since Richard’s day job is as an RCMP officer at the Ashcroft detachment. At least if there’s any real-life mayhem, he’ll be able to deal with it.
Stage manager Jessica Clement is back, as is set designer and builder extraordinaire Jim Duncan, who quickly realizes that while there is only one set, it presents some challenges, about which I can’t say any more as it will ruin several surprises. Cast member Mavourneen Varcoe-Ryan has already started texting photos of finds — mirrors, lamps — that might be suitable, which Jessica and I view and respond to with a yes or no.
Costume designer and seamstress Margaret Moreira is also back, and two weeks into the run finds she’ll be doing double-duty when one of the actors has to pull out, and she is called on to fill in. Yours truly is back directing; my third time as solo director, after two stints as co-director and six appearances on stage. It means that I’m back to blocking, figuring out where everyone is on stage at any given moment, so when I have some spare time I whip out my pencil and get to work.
Eleven plays in 11 years. Blimey. It seems like only yesterday that I saw a poster asking actors to audition for WRAPS’ production of the immortal Swamp Pirate Zombies back in 2012, and decided to give it a go. As I sit in the rehearsal room at the HUB, watching everyone take their first steps toward opening night, I’m so very glad I did.
The Game’s Afoot will be at the Ashcroft HUB for five performances from April 12 to 15.
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