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Murder will out: 'Death By Design' blends comedy, mystery at The Adobe Theater
Clockwise from top left: Sarah Kesselring, Isaac Carrillo, Rhonda Sigler-Ware and Dan Ware star in “Death By Design” at The Adobe Theater.
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A weekend retreat to a country house, a radical socialist, a politician and
a nearsighted ingénue mingle in a mashup of Noël Coward-meets-Agatha Christie.
They all carry secrets.
Opening at The Adobe Theater on Friday, Aug. 30, “Death By Design” blends both comedy and mystery in a fast-paced farce featuring a tangle of screwball twists.
“It’s a mystery,” said director Lewis Hauser. “It’s also a comedy. It’s a throwback to the old style mysteries of the 1930s. It’s just one twist after another.”
It’s 1932 and Edward Bennett, a playwright, and his actress wife Sorel have just had a disastrous opening night.
She is an outrageous, flirty, capricious over-actor, and it’s perfectly obvious why Gertrude Lawrence, of whom she is passionately jealous, is much better. They’ve escaped London to hunker down in their country digs, only to have their peace shattered by the arrival of one unexpected screwball guest after another. When one of the guests is murdered, Bridgit, the manor’s feisty Irish maid with a macabre interest in homicide, is determined to solve the crime, armed with a feather duster.
“They all intermingle when a murder occurs,” Hauser said. “All of these people are involved in the murder in some way. It’s up to the audience to figure things out.”
Hauser has directed many comedies for The Adobe Theater over the years. Last year, he presented Neil Simon’s “The Dinner Party.”
The cast features Isaac Carrillo, Tim Crofton, Clair Gardner, Sarah Kesselring, Kristine Padilla, Rhonda Sigler-Ware, Dan Ware and Julian Wheaton.
