Mystery Cafe's Murder Mystery Peggy Sue Got Murdered.
The 'Welcome Back to Elizabeth Borden High School Sock Hop' goes terribly wrong when the most popular girl in school, Peggy Sue is murdered. The Big Copper and his assistant Teen Angel investigate the murder at a school where all the characters from your favorite songs attend. The suspect list include, Mack the Knife, Good Golly Miss Molly and everybody's favorite Charley Brown. Return with us to the year 1959 by the magical time machine we call theater to resolve the case of 'Peggy Sue Got Murdered.'
It is available as a private show for companies and groups.
However I now find that this show, as well as me, have gotten old. We first did this murder mystery in 1995. At that time the 50's were a long time ago. Now however as we are in the year 2017 I find that it was a very long time ago. For you see when we tell a volunteer in the audience their character is Mary Lou they go "who is that?" I used to say the girl from the song but now they reply back "what song is that?" Just depresses me that certain songs that I treasure in my heart are now forgotten.
What all that means is that we might have done our last showing of Peggy Sue Got Murdered. Which is a real shame.
The mystery takes place in a school that is named after Elizabeth Borden. Which, if you know, she was a murderer that may or may not have murdered her parents. She was acquitted but from all we know of the story here in this day and age she had to have been guilty. If DNA had been around then maybe they could have gotten a guilty verdict. I bring that up because DNA testing is used in the Peggy Sue murder mystery to solve the crime. Just not the way you would normally think DNA testing is done.
This is the school from which all those characters in those old songs went to school. Long Tall Sally and Venus in Blue Jeans to name two. We always found it funny to choose a volunteer from the audience who was vertically challenged to play Long Tall Sally. Maybe it was one of those times where we found it funny but nobody else got the joke. Remember the Big Bopper? Well I played him as an actor, for he was a main character. He had joined the police force and was going by the name of Big Copper by then. My assistant was Teen Angel, who was some kind of ghostly zombie type character. Because, I know you don't remember but in the song, "Teen Angel" she dies. So the Murder Mystery Peggy Sue occurs after her death in that song.
This murder mystery works real well for older audiences but the younger crowd is not going to get it. Another thing that I have figured out with songs, that you knew as a kid, as you get older you realize they were not the clean wholesome songs you remember. For you see a couple of times an actual High School wanted a Private Murder Mystery Show. So we would do Peggy Sue Got Murdered for them. As an older gentlemen saying lines, right out of the songs, to 16-17 year old girls, I would have to fight my feeling of embarrassment. Nobody ever complained to my face but I can only imagine what the chaperones were thinking.
How many of you have to Google the term "Sock Hop" to learn what it is. The Sock Hop takes place in the beginning of the 1959 school year. When we first did this show in 1995 we set up the hallway into the room as if you were going into a time machine that was transporting you back to the year 1959 to solve a murder mystery that was never solved. A term I now know but didn't' back then was it was a "cold case." We were taking you back in time to solve the baffling case of who murdered Peggy Sue?
Three other notes on this show is one; it is the easiest one to solve if you just pay attention and two it is the most gruesome of all the murder mysteries we do. The other shows have comedic murders while this one incorporates blood, well fake blood. The third is we as actors get to play, once in awhile, very funny characters. Mr Willis Edsel is the Boys Counselor at the school and he tries very unsuccessful to solve the murder himself.
Now I myself did not start out acting in the show. Since we started doing it in 1995 there has been 4 different actors play the part of Mr Edsel and the Big Copper and for actresses play the parts of Peggy Sue, Betty Lou and Teen Angel.
