Stage Crafters Community Theatre Opens Its 51st Season With the Hilarious Whodunnit, Clue: On Stage!
By Bobby Parker
Award-winning actor, Laurence Olivier, once stated that he believed that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theatre is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture. Luckily, Fort Walton Beach is home to a local community theatre that exudes the artistic and vibrant culture of our great city. Now in its 51st Season, Stage Crafters Community Theatre is the oldest, continually-run all volunteer community theatre in Florida and is bringing to the Fort Walton Beach Civic Auditorium stage a season complete with comedies, classics and a very “rotten” musical.
In the first show of the season, the classic board game is brought to life in Clue: On Stage! Six guests are invited to a dinner party thrown by an anonymous host. They are given aliases – Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock, Professor Plum and Miss Scarlet. Though discouraged from revealing personal information, it is soon discovered that all of them have fallen victim to the same blackmailer — their very host of the evening. Each is presented with a weapon and an option: pay their extortionist double or kill the innocent butler. What follows is a madcap, slapstick evening full of murder, mystery and laughs as they seek to puzzle out the culprit amongst criminals. Clue: On Stage! by Sandy Ruskin and based on the screenplay by Jonathan Lynn opens March 10th and is directed by Don Goodrum.
Opening June 2nd is the Agatha Christie classic, And Then There Were None, directed by Holly Moore. Ten strangers are invited to a remote island mansion and all that they guests have in common is a wicked past they are unwilling to reveal and a secret that will seal their fate; each has been marked for murder. As the weather grows grim, the group is cut off from the mainland and the bloodbath begins as one by one they are murdered in accordance with the lines of a sinister nursery rhyme. The stage version is based on one of Christie’s most successful novels written during World War II, and its growing sense of dread and unfaltering tension will keep you guessing to the very end.
Catch-22, written by Joseph Heller and directed by Douglas Henderson, is adapted from Heller’s classic 1961 novel and is a fast-paced satire of the folly of war and those who make it pay as seen through the eyes of Captain John Yossarian, a nihilistic pilot convinced his number is up. Every time ‘Yo-Yo’ reaches his quota of missions, the requirements are increased until he flatly refuses to fly, because he believes the military is deliberately trying to send him to an untimely death! As he concocts ever more inventive ways of avoiding his missions, unforgettable characters sometimes aid in his schemes, but usually hilariously foil them. In the end, Yossarian has it all figured out. But then there’s always a catch. Catch-22 opens August 18th.
Rounding out the season is the musical Something Rotten by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell with music and lyrics by Karey Kirkpatrick and Wayne Kirkpatrick and directed by Craig Ewing. Opening November 10th, Something Rotten was lauded by audience members and critics alike, receiving several Best Musical nominations and hailed by Time Out New York as “the funniest musical comedy in at least 400 years.” Set in the 1590s, brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom are desperate to write a hit play, but are stuck in the shadow of that Renaissance rock star known as “The Bard.” When a local soothsayer foretells that the future of theatre involves singing, dancing and acting at the same time, Nick and Nigel set out to write the world’s very first musical. But amidst the scandalous excitement of opening night, the Bottom Brothers realize that reaching the top means being true to thine own self, and all that jazz.
To learn more about Stage Crafters Community Theatre and to purchase tickets, visit StageCraftersFWB.com.
