2019 Dinner Theater performance

May 10th, the day after our dress rehearsal, we finally performed our long awaited Dinner Theater Art to Die For.

There was so much to do since we also served dinner to the guests, a taco bar.

Harry and Janet. Janet helped in the kitchen for our wedding!

Noah played piano for entertainment. 

He really did a great job.

We were supposed to mingle in character. 

Terry was the best. His character was spot on. Proud and pompous. 

I think he greeted about every table.

I didn't quite know what to do so I sort of followed Terry around a bit and interrupted his conversations. 

I had to instill doubt into Terry's artistic abilities and cast doubt on myself as a potential perpetrator of the crime.

Steven and I chatting.

Time to perform!

All the kids were on their phones but after I gave them a hard time about this experience never happening again, they put them away. 

Evie and Cade were up first. They had stumbled upon a crime scene where a woman had been grievously injured at an art gallery. Cade/Billy Peters, an aspiring detective, wanted to investigate, and Evie was the scared little sister, Shawna Peters, just wanted to leave.

When Terry came in, she backed into him, and said, "Ah! A ghost!" And the hair went flying. 

Terry, otherwise known as Marcus Dyer III, just wanted the kids away from the scene of the crime where his art had been destroyed.

Becky/"Detective AJ Teal" was an actor attempting to be a detective and together she and Cade began investigating. Evie was really happy with it. 

Quite a crowd!

Marcus was called by Ashely/Grace to fill in for the empty art gala that weekend. 

Noah and Cole brought in his crowing glory piece (also notice the red painting behind them that Evie did).

His "self portrait" that he sculpted after he hit his head in the shower.

The curator, Prae/Fran, was horrified when she saw. 

Fran yelled at Grace constantly. Terry constantly stroked his "masterpiece."

The night of the gala and still arguing.

Moses/Casey was Fran's brother and comic relief...and also gospel presenter. 

Mike/gallery guest advised Casey to never have daughters after his whined about not having a pony.

The other characters with small parts, like me, milled around as gallery guests.

Casey grabbing a tissue for Grace who was crying due to Fran's behavior toward her.

Flirting.

Another guest was Suzanne/Kitty Diamond, was an selfish, entitled, rich woman. Here she'd lost her dog that Fran warned her about.

This was one of my favorite parts of the play. Fran threw Kitty out and Suzanne just went for the full drama.

"You witch!" Poor Noah had to pull her off pretty forcefully because of how committed she was, ha ha. 

Fast forward to again discussing of the crime. 

Evie would really just like some Baskin Robins. She went home.

Fran began to show the guests around the gallery.

My time had come.

I questioned what Fran was doing with the gallery and how the community would not like how she had treated it. 

Fran was offended and shot back at me.

Jake and Jenna were an old couple who wandered through as comic relief and also to cast suspicion on them as perpetrators of the crime. Jake's line here of "much obliged" always made me laugh.

Steven was a rich sheik with his daughter and accidentally offended Marcus by insulting his "art" and they argued. 

"Will no one ever understand me?"

After the gala closed Fran discussed how she had tanked the gallery and was going to make money off it. A dark figure picked up Marcus' statue and hit her on the head with it. Cue darkness.

Time for AJ to question the audience and cast about who dun it.

"Raise your hands."

Questioning. AJ went through everyone.

Marcus pointing at me as a suspect before Kitty vouched for me.

Hmmm...

It was Grace!! She couldn't take Fran anymore!

Casey's mind was blown.

The end. Time for a bow.

The cast looking on while we presented Sarah with flowers.

  

This was an enormous task but one that helped us grow together as a team. It was also fantastic fun!

Russ photobombed our family cast photo at like 10:30pm that night when we were finally leaving the church. It felt like the longest day ever. It was our first day of summer break but Noah had to go to Kadoka for a track meet and leave it early for the dinner theater - so did Moses and Tori. It was a crazy day. 

We recorded our performance but it somehow failed. Evie and I did our best to recreate it. This is the video she made.

Then I took every picture I had and made a very quick fast motion video of the performance so it almost feels like the real thing.