by C J Jackman Zigante

Created on: February 15, 2009   Last Updated: March 01, 2009

Perhaps the most fun I have when it comes to writing for theatre, film, or what have you, is writing murder mysteries and cabaret shows. Dinner theatre is the best place to get your feet wet writing. It gives you the opportunity to create a lot of characters and several plotlines that don't require real in depth analysis. For cabaret you get to try your hand at formatting a shows line up and content. Will it have song and dance numbers, comedy sketches, standup, improv?

The sky's the limit on what you do and parody reins supreme.

The same can be said about murder mysteries they can be serious or down right hilariously funny even slapstick will work. If I had to pick my favorite of the two it would be writing the mysteries. It is the one place I can really let my sense of humour show to it's fullest. Yes you can write very funny traditional theatre pieces, but you are stuck most times with the forth wall convention. Murder mysteries take you into the interactive realm where improv plays a very dominant role and thinking on your feet is almost mandatory. I love the adrenaline rush that brings.

The writing process feels so much simpler, you decide what the mystery is then write to it and as I said, parody is most welcome. For example one of my favourites that I wrote back in 1998 was titled Murder at Miss Billies. It was my homage to some of my favorite movies set in the 20s n 30s Bullets over Broadway, Harlem Nights, Victor Victoria [which was actually a play first], My favorite character from it was Leslie Anne Warren's ditzy but vindictive blond bombshell showgirl.

From her image, emerged a similar character with some minor differences, she wasn't quite so dumb, nor was she as talented in the singing department. I named her Gloria Sugarloaf. she was accompanied by 11 other characters including of course Miss Billie herself who reminds me of another great perk with murder mysteries, writing a part for yourself.

Now where this is fun, besides the actual performing of it, is the writing of it, since you basically get to sit down create a character, write their back story and their connection to the other characters, hint at whether they may be victims, or possible suspects, or both. accompany it with a short plot summary at the beginning setting up the nights events and you're done. I think the total writing time for Billies was an hour.

Since this is basically your program for the audience to read during the run of the evening you don't have to constantly tell people

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