By Chuck Darrow
There’s no question that Atlantic City is an East Coast entertainment capital. But virtually all of the offerings–from top-shelf musical attractions to the moment’s hottest comics—offer passive experiences. That is, the audience simply sits and watches the performers.
That is why the ongoing series of “murder-mystery” programs staged at the Starlight Room inside Resorts Casino-Hotel are so special: They’re the only gaming hall-sponsored entertainment events in which those in attendance are integrated into the proceedings.
It should be noted that these presentations aren’t based on the familiar template in which archetypal British drawing-room characters (and their servants) are the suspects. Instead, satirizing popular TV shows, including “The Golden Girls,” are the foundation; the next presentation is “Murder At the Perk: The One That Kills,” which is scheduled for Nov. 11, and which finds the characters from “Friends” involved in nefarious activities at “Perk Place,” an Atlantic City coffeehouse.
“It is an interactive event,” offered Traci Connaughton, whose Without A Cue Productions has been staging the shows at Resorts for some eight years. “A lot of people who haven’t seen it before, they’ll be trying to choose their seats and they’ll ask, ‘Where’s the stage?’ And I will say, ‘We don’t have one, because we work within the audience.’
“We mingle throughout the room, but it’s a fully scripted, fully performed show. It just happens to be [performed] in the audience rather than on the stage.”
According to Connaughton, who’s also bringing in the seasonally themed “A Dickens of A Murder” on Dec. 9, each of her productions springs from a 40-page script, but plenty of room is left for audience give-and-take. It’s simply a matter of the actors determining how involved the folks in the crowd want to get.
“We feel out the crowd; we figure out who wants to do more, and give them more to do,” she explained. “But it’s interactive in that we just kind of throw things out into the audience and see what we get back. And then we kind of riff with them in that way and with each other. So while it’s not a hundred-percent improvised, every night is a little different.”
While audience members don’t have to engage with the actors, they are there to solve a crime. As such, everyone is expected to participate in what Connaughton called the “ballot break.” This part doesn’t determine who the “murderer” is, as that is already in the script. But it does give folks a chance to test their powers of deduction and reason. And the person who provides the most correct answers wins a prize.
Incidentally, last weekend’s death of “Friends” co-star Matthew Perry will not affect the Resorts date. Connaughton advised that Perry’s character, Chandler, isn’t the one who gets murdered. As such, “Just one line was switched out.”
The audience-solves-a-murder-mystery concept is neither new, nor limited to Atlantic City. So, what’s the secret behind its popularity? According to Connaughton, it’s a matter of how ingrained the concept is in popular culture.
“I think people like the idea of solving a crime and examining the clues and all of that,” she reasoned. “Murder mystery as a form of entertainment is one of the biggest out there; look at television and movies and podcasts. People just seem to love it.”
For tickets, go to www.resortsac.com.
Rainbow does Harrah’s
As expected, song parodist extraordinaire Randy Rainbow impressed with his “Randy Rainbow for President” extravaganza last Friday at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City.
The set—which was framed as a campaign event for Rainbow’s fictional 2024 White House run–was one-third classic, pre-1960s nightclub act, one-third camp-drenched gay cabaret show and one-third progressive-Democrat rally. In all, it was a marvel of creativity and technology, and it certainly confirmed the star’s status as, arguably, the best musical comedian working today.
Rainbow’s stock-in-trade is taking popular songs (primarily show tunes) and writing wickedly funny lyrics that eviscerate those whom Rainbow opposes on political, philosophical and social grounds. But as is the case with his extremely popular social-media videos (we’re talking millions of views), his main target was Donald Trump. And therein was the problem with the performance.
As talented as Rainbow is (and make no mistake, his creative and performing gifts are many and varied), his turn was redundant to the edge of tedium. From the very start, he aimed his seemingly unlimited amount of vitriol at Donald Trump with his opening volley of “Don’t Rain On His Campaign” (e.g. “Don’t Rain On My Parade” from “Funny Girl”) and “He’s So Indicted” (“The Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited”).
By the end of this sequence, it had to be clear to everyone in the house (if it weren’t clear before the show even started) how he feels about POTUS-45. But that didn’t keep him from returning to that theme time and time (and time and time) again.
While he also aimed his poison darts at various Trump stooges, acolytes and alleged co-conspirators, including Rudy Guiliani (“Rudy And the Beast”), Mike Pence and Marjorie Taylor-Greene (or “Taylor-Moron,” as he put it), he always came back to his favorite fish-in-a-barrel. By doing so, he took some of the shine off what could have been a truly memorable evening.
Chuck Darrow has spent more than 40 years writing about Atlantic City casinos.
