Murder mystery parody play opens tonight at Notre Dame

The title says the butler did it, but there’s no butler among the mystery-writer guests at a murder-mystery weekend party in Tim Kelly’s play “The Butler Did It!”

It’s set to open at 7 p.m. today at Notre Dame Regional High School’s Cynthia R. King Performance Hall .

Director Cynthia King said she chose the play for a few reasons.

It gave her a chance to cast five male and five female roles, she said, and it’s a parody of murder-mystery stories that itself is a murder mystery.

Each character is a detective-story author portraying one of their own characters, King said.

Rick, played by junior Nick Kelley, chokes on a drink during a dress rehearsal of Notre Dame's fall play, The Butler Did It, on Oct. 31, 2017 at Notre Dame Regional High School in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

“It has some good acting opportunities,” King added.

The ensemble cast of 10 actors with two assistant directors, Chelsea Ryan and Claire Conaway, is great to work with, King said.

“It’s comic, and the high-school students may not know the characters, but parents and grandparents will,” King said.

Freshman Benjamin Schumer plays Chandler Marlowe, who, Schumer said, is a classic tough guy, a bit of a womanizer who always needs to be top dog.

“I love how you can tell the plotline from the first five words of the play,” Schumer said.

The comedic wit of the play is something Schumer said he thinks audience members will enjoy, too.

Sophomore Molly Sellers said that’s her favorite aspect as well.

Sellers, who plays social secretary Rita Eyelesbarrow, said she’s a big fan of the movie “Clue,” which this play is similar to in tone and pacing.

“I love the comedy, but not just the comedy,” Sellers said. “It’s the mystery of it too.”

Sellers, who played Jack’s mother in “Into the Woods” this spring at Notre Dame, said the biggest hurdle she overcame with this show was learning to use her prop and not just carry it around.

Sellers has a large hatbox she uses throughout the show, she said.

“I think I have the hang of it now,” she added.

Sellers said another great thing about this show is it’s right in the title, the butler did it.

“But there’s no butler,” she said.

While the show might seem to lend itself easily to a British setting, characters that send up British murder-mystery detectives and a plot that sees the dowager arranging a dinner party at a mysterious manor on an island, but that island is off the coast of San Francisco.

So the setting is definitely America, Sellers said.

Tickets are $10 for performances at 7 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday at King Performance Hall, Notre Dame Regional High School, 265 Notre Dame Drive in Cape Girardeau.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

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Pertinent address:

265 Notre Dame Drive, Cape Girardeau, Mo.