St. Albert Theatre Troupe opens season with a whodunnit

When women get together for drinks and laughs, curious and sometimes strange things happen. But it can’t get any weirder than Girls Night Out, St. Albert Theatre Troupe’s season opener.

In this two-act dinner theatre show that rolls out Nov. 5 and runs for three consecutive weekends at Kinsmen Banquet Hall, four girl friends head out to dinner for an evening of fun.

The restaurant is owned by Everett, a guy who cheats, steals and fights – not a nice guy. One of the women is his ex-wife Gwen, her sister Victoria, his girlfriend Brigitte and Lu, a friend and detective.

Between the salad greens and the entrée, Everett bites the dust. Suspicion falls on the four women. Each member of the quartet has a hate-on for him and wishes him dead.

American playwright Rick Artis wrote the murder mystery script with three possible endings. He littered the script with clues and red herrings allowing a cast to deliver a different ending every night.

“This is a great opportunity to do deep character exploration and the script is laid out in a way that we can make a lot of creative choices without changing the text,” said director Rain Mair.

Girls Night Out is Mair’s directorial debut with the local theatre company. Raised in Edmonton, Mair received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre from the University of Victoria. Presently she is enrolled in MacEwan University’s Arts and Cultural Management Program.

The ensemble cast stars Rick Buchanan as the slimy Everett; Beverley Luckett-Nase as Gwen, the angry wife; Wylee Johnston as the unhappy girlfriend Brigitte; Pattie Hammerlindl as Victoria, the distrustful sister-in-law, and Joanne Poplett as Lu, the detective that feels pressure to solve the case.

Artis wrote this interactive murder mystery as a guessing game. But underneath the intrigue he reinforces the notion that people are not black and white, said Mair.

“We all have the potential to do horrible things, but most of us don’t. People aren’t always who you think they are. People have more layers than you think.”

But it’s not only detective work. The dialogue is littered with euphemisms that create humorous moments throughout the more tense scenes.

“The langue is casual and conversational and it’s written in the way four ladies would talk if they were going to a murder mystery theatre.”

Mair sees many pluses to seeing the show including good food and a restaurant type ambiance.

“It’s more than just funny. It’s fun. It’s like solving a puzzle. The audience may not always laugh, but they’ll always be sorting things out. Murder mysteries have stock characters and we try to be true to the genre.”