The Extremely Amateur Players provided an evening of comedy and mystery for guests at the dinner theatre production of “The Last Dance of Dr. Disco” by author Ellen Moushey on Friday, November 21st, 2003 Disco TIPS, known during the day as The International Preparatory School, was the setting for murder and merriment as teams of amateur detectives tried to solve this interactive murder mystery. As guests arrived they were met by Dr. Disco himself and his faithful and lovely nurse, Ilsa Hump.
“Staying Alive” took on a whole new meaning in this mixture of “Saturday Night Fever” meets James Bond. Not only were members of the audience expected to be detectives, some were recruited as new disco dancers for the club. Our disco queen, Angie Portobello taught the new dancers some disco steps and they were then ready to join the famous Tony Menuda and Angie on stage.
Perhaps “Saturday Night Fatal” might be a more appropriate title of this thriller. Dr. Disco invited his guests to participate in a little project of his and guaranteed that they would never be the same again. Inspired by his whinny daughter, Margie, the megalomaniac doctor had invented a special machine to make everyone his slave and so dominate the world. The plan was to start with the disco crowd present that evening but one of the dancers from the audience was murdered after the dancing. However, the British Secret Service was on the job in the guise of Dylan Wanker better known as Agent X. Was Dr. Disco the only arch villain around or were their others?
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| Dr. Disco (Pam Van Arsdale) greets disco fans. | The famous Ilsa Hump (Lotta Bakos) in nursing attire. | Tony Menudo and Angie Portobello (Stephanie O'Kane) | Andrew Wood as Tony in action. |
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| Margie (Laura Berger) and Ilsa | Why is everyone attacking Agent X, Miles Doyle? | Is this a mini-grenade? |
Our hostess and representatives of the winning teams
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| Our hostess Diana | The winning line-up |
Some happy winners! |
To help them solve the mystery each team received a clue packet full of puzzles and ‘70s trivia to help them find a key piece of evidence. Members of the cast mingled with the audience dropping hints and accusations before the play began and during the clue hunt. For almost an hour the teams of “murder buddies” laboured away searching for answers and filling out their mystery solution sheets. After tabulating the results there was a random drawing from those teams with the correct answer for top winner and runner-up but to make the evening more fun, prizes were also awarded for the most confused, most creative and most outrageous answers.
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The evening’s proceeds from tickets, the bar and the sale of extra clues went to Fundación Nuestros Hijos and Corporación Grada (The Babies Home). The Fundación Nuestros Hijos aids poor children with cancer and now treats approximately 900 children, not only financing treatment for them, but providing schooling and a place to stay for children from outside Santiago. The Babies Home is run by a non-governmental organization which cares for children between the ages of six weeks and two years who have been abandoned or mistreated and children whose families are unable to care for them.
The Extremely Amateur Players- Pamela Van Arsdale, Lotta Bakos, Stephanie O’Kane, Miles Doyle, Andrew Wood, Laura Berger, Corinna Gilligan and Diana Smith - would like to thank all those who helped make the evening a success, those who helped with the decorations and desserts; and especially – our great audience!