Rehearsal For Murder

Adapted by D.D. Brooke
From the teleplay by
Richard Levinson and William Link

Performed
July 28-31 and August 3-7, 2004
at
The Boal Barn Playhouse

Production Staff

Director	Shaun T. McMurtrie
Scenic Designer	Anne Thompson
Costume Designer	Deborah Osborne
Technical Director	Alexa Krepps
Lighting Designer	Jason Zanitsch Caitlin Howley
Stage Manager	Erin Albrecht
Apprentice Coordinator	William C. Mulberger

About the Show

In Rehearsal for Murder, Bella Lamb, a theatrical producer, tells playwright Alex Dennison that if his new mystery play does not do well on Broadway, he can always sell it to television. Actually, in the case of Rehearsal for Murder, TV came first, then the play. The original TV script, the basis for the play by D. D. Brooke, was written by Richard Levinson and William Link, two of TV’s most successful mystery writers, responsible for the creation of Mannix, Columbo, and most notably, Murder She Wrote.

We are in the hands here of two real professionals. It is not surprising that Rehearsal for Murder is very clever. It has as its basis Hamlet’s words that “guilty creatures sitting at a play, have by the very cunning of the scene, been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their malefaction …. The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”. Rehearsal for Murder is a play within a play, devised to unmask a killer.

It won’t be easy to detect the murderer’s identity. As Alex tells his actors, “You take the audience by the hand and lead them in the wrong direction. They trust you and you betray them, all in the name of surprise”. And surprise there is. Smoke and mirrors. Signs and portents that may or may not lead anywhere.

The clues are all there. So are the red herrings. What is the significance of the monocle, the Girl Scout knife, the envelope of money, the flashlight? Why is Ernie, the doorman, so reluctant to leave the theatre? Can Sally be as naive as she appears to be? Who is the man Alex sneaks into the theatre, unbeknownst to the others? Why the arrival at a crucial moment of the play of Santoro, the moving man, who comes to unload some furniture? Answer these questions and you might very well have the key to solving the mystery. Or, you might be led down the garden path.

Richard Gidez for SCCT

The Cast

(in order of appearance)

Alex Dennison	Mike Waldhier
Ernie	Charlie Wilson
Sally Bean	Katie Murray
Monica Welles	Jocelyn Hepp
Loretta	Laura Stocker Waldhier
Lloyd Andrews	William C. Mulberger
Bella Lamb	Susanna Ritti
Karen Daniels	Caitlin Osborne
David Matthews	John T. Cole
Leo Gibbs	John Austin
Male Police Officer	Jeff Bleam
Female Police Officer	Ana del Puerto
Man in Auditorium	Bill Markley
Mr. Santoro	Corey Knudson