Dinner Theatre Thingamy

Hiya Diatribers. Those of you who frequent RPGnet’s LARP board will have seen this crossposted there. It’s an interesting possible gig and I’d like to get some ideas from anyone generous enough to throw some around…

A local outfit has asked me to chat with them about the possibilities for dinner theatre-style entertainment. I’m pretty comfortable talking about murder-mystery dinner evenings like you get out of a box, and about big everyone-has-a-character LARP-type events, and a few other variations; and they’re interested in all that.

But their first interest is in something where the audience sit eating their banquet, with actors in character sitting among them; and in the central space there are regular semi-scripted performances driving a narrative to a conclusion.

So I’m appealing for ideas about how to build up interactivity! At the moment I’m not fussed about whether its interactive in the sense that “we spoke to an actor and he replied” or interactive in the sense that “we contributed to the plot and changed the outcome” or wherever in between; just general idea-gathering for now.

Some starting ideas:

  • two actors who are not seated together ask dinner guests sitting between them to pass messages back and forth (perhaps they’re not talking to each other, or perhaps they’re flirting with each other, or…)

  • an actor asks his dining companions for ideas about what to say to convince someone of something, then uses the best gambit suggested in the upcoming performance scene

  • an actor asks one of the guests to cover for her while she conducts secret business, and the guest is pulled up and into the performance scene

Etc. I’m just starting to brainstorm about this, so any ideas are very welcome!

cheers,
morgue (still to sort out whether he can make it to Chimera)

There’s a Dick Francis book called The Edge which is mostly set on a train in which a Murder Mystery is being conducted for the entertainment of the guests. It’s jolly good fun - might be useful to read for ideas.

An old standby would be an actor who flirts incorrigably with different guests, and their partner gets upset by it.