Scandal in Middle America... Virden After Dark
2012 · Virden, Illinois
"Scandal in Middle America... Virden After Dark" is one of Ken Bradbury's interactive murder-mystery comedies, written for the Friends of Art and Drama, a community arts group formed after the Virden and Girard, Illinois schools consolidated. The group raised money for the arts in their schools, purchasing microphones and a portable light board for the high school drama department and a glass fusion kiln for the art classes. As organizer Jeannie Alexander wrote to Ken, their productions were warmly received: "people stop me on the street wondering what we are doing next."
The play unfolds inside Square Books, a bookstore on the Virden square, where guests have gathered for the world premiere of a scandalous new tell-all book about their little town. But the author, Dr. Muckley Raker — the same muckraker who exposed "The Scandal of Thayer," "Fooling Around in Farmersville," and "Hot Nights in Auburn" — never makes it to the podium. He turns up dead at the back door, a sharp object driven five inches into his chest. Enter Inspector Sherlock Mayeda ("Portuguese Irish with just a touch of wasabi from Japan"), who happens to be passing through on his way to a crime conference in Girard, and who declares that everyone present is a suspect.
Like many of Ken's dinner-theater mysteries, the script is built to fold the audience directly into the action. Sherlock works the room, deducing wild biographies from guests' clothing and the cars parked out front, while the fussy proprietor Miss Isabelle Binder scolds patrons for slouching, texting, and putting their feet on the chairs. The comedy mines Virden's real coal-town history — and its tongue-in-cheek reputation for small-town secrets — for an evening of local-flavored whodunit fun.
Cast
- Miss Isabelle Binder — owner of Square Books, a spinsterish, bun-haired fusspot
- Mortimer Murphey — the bookstore janitor, a shuffling and easily confused older man
- Felicity Spine — cook, salesgirl, and maid, a highly-strung flibbertigibbet with a cockney accent
- Sherlock Mayeda — the detective, with a British accent and a "certain stigma" to his last name
- Dr. Muckley Raker — the scandal-mongering author, found dead
- The Macoupin Minstrels — local performers
Production Notes
Written by Ken Bradbury for the Friends of Art and Drama in Virden, Illinois (Macoupin and Sangamon counties), the same group that had previously staged mysteries including "Finnegan's Farewell." Ken corresponded with organizer Jeannie Alexander about the production and was invited to be involved as playwright, director, producer, or technical director. The script is highly localized, weaving in real Virden landmarks, businesses, and the town's coal-mining heritage — including the 1898 Battle of Virden and Mother Jones — to ground the comedy in the community staging it.