Can A House Kill A Person?

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. As producers of a hit Murder Mystery dinner theater in Los Angeles, Nora and I are constantly challenged to come up with new, exciting mysteries for our audiences to solve.  Every month we switch the plots and characters because many patrons keep coming back to the El Cid. They can't seem to get enough murder so we want to satiate their hunger. We were all set this month to open "Where There is Smoke" - a mystery about a house fire and subsequent killings- but here in Los Angeles, fires are currently running wild and people are evacuating their homes. We decided to change the story. What we came up with was 'Murder House", which I'll discuss in the next paragraph. It may seem odd that we would be so sensitive to the story line considering the macabre aspect of what we do in the first place. We gave the matter great thought and figured that people who directly affected by the tragedy and horror of a real life homicide probably aren't coming to our show anyway, or they are using the laughter of our show in a cathartic manner in order to live life on life's terms. Laughter is the best healer, I always say. So how is doing a fire story different? People who are suffering directly through this sordid fire business won't be attending anyway or would also be trying to laugh of the tragedy of it. So why not do the script? It seems to me that the fire affects the entire psyche of the city - we are all burning at the moment - so it somehow seems a little insensitive to do that particular mystery at this time.

So we changed the script. I gotta tell you, I like it better. "Where There Is Smoke" is a solid show with a great cast of characters and has a logical flow that satisfies die-hard fans of the genre who want to do some serious sleuthing. "Murder House" does all this but adds the element of a half century old curse upon a house. This element adds an aura of superstition and the paranormal which is, in my opinion, the perfect way to usher in the Autumn where the veil between this world and the other is at its most thin. This murder mystery has a back story. Because of that, we give the first clue on the program so everyone gets this exposition right away. A lot of stuff has happened before the audience arrives. The curse was put on Murder House in 1959 and continues to this day. The latest victim was Vera Pietra who fell to her death into the Canyon behind the house. Did the Murder House kill her? Could it be that simple? And so we all arrive at the El Cid Crime Scene Dinner Theater "on the same page".

Our three previous interactive murder mystery diner shows were "La Pintura Frecuentada, The Haunted Painting", which also had elements of the supernatural, "Murdertopia", about a celebrity crime writer, and "Look Both Ways Before Crossing The Mob", about the consequences of betrayal. All three were smash hits and filled the house week after week. We believe "Murder House" will continue this trend. And just like the previous cases, Nora and I will be tweeting bonus clues all week prior to show time and then during the meal breaks at the show. Follow us on twitter at twitter.com/sharpo. We hope to see you at the show. Box office information for Sharpo Murder Mystery and website are provided in the resource box below.