Audience will pick murderer

It's a musical that will have audience members guessing.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Augusta Prep, the Young Artists Repertory Theater Company will present Clue, the Musical, based on the classic Parker Brothers board game.

The musical is built around audience participation, with theater-goers choosing from a deck of cards the murderer, the weapon and the scene of the crime before the play begins, said Keith Manasco, who plays Mr. Green and also serves as the play's director.

Like the game, the cards are sealed, and only Mr. Boddy, the narrator, and the victim, played by Pen Chance, of Waynesboro, know the murderer's identity.

There are 216 possible endings to the show, and the audience "doesn't know who the murderer is. The cast doesn't know who the murderer is. The only person who knows is the person who dies," Mr. Manasco said.

As the musical progresses, Mr. Boddy and the rest of the cast provide clues to the murderer's identity in song.

"A big (signal) to the audience is whenever Mr. Boddy makes the house lights go up, that's a major clue," Manasco said.

Chance, 13, said coping with audience involvement is one of the challenges.

"With audience reaction, you have to learn to improvise," he said. "They can do anything and you have to be able to know what to do."

Clue is over-the-top, high-energy and a dark comedy, with subject matter suitable for those over the age of 13, Manasco said.

Some of the characters providing much of the PG-13 content are Mrs. White, a maid played in drag by 13-year-old Austin Sprague, of Augusta, and Col. Mustard, played by Augusta State University senior Jeff Hutto, of Augusta.

"Col. Mustard is ex-military, but not really, only in his imagination," Hutto said. "(He) has the most unfortunate disease (that) when he gets excited he looks at people and they become inanimate objects."

The show begins at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets for a dinner theater are $20 for adults and $18 for students and seniors. Without the dinner, the show is $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors.