Museum Uses Whodunit to Lure Younger Patrons

The museum-goers eyed each other suspiciously as they gathered in the courtyard of the Long Beach Museum of Art for an unveiling on a recent Friday night.

Some guests whispered that the donated painting was a forgery. All of them knew someone in their midst was about to be murdered.

Mildred, the museum’s doddering assistant director, ushered people into the gift shop. Rebecca stood alone in the garden, winking at men who looked her way. Lance drank a whole bottle of champagne at the bar.

Then there was Frank, who arrived with two women, spoke loudly about his past wives and confessed that he had never been to the museum. Frank, no doubt, was a man to watch this evening.

But Frank Pepe was not in the cast of “Consequences,” a mystery dinner theater being held at the museum every Friday night through November. He was a guest attending this unique fund-raiser staged to recruit new and younger customers to the museum, which has drawn mostly senior citizens. The idea is to incorporate the museum’s exhibits, gardens and gift shop at 2300 Ocean Blvd. into a whodunit so that the museum can attract a wider audience.

“I’ve driven down Ocean Boulevard for years, and I never knew this was here,” said Pepe, a Fullerton ad salesman. “I’m sure I’ll be back, now that I know it’s here.”

A Long Beach friend of Pepe, Jeanette Brown, said she had visited the museum once but would like to return because a cast member told her the exhibit changes every six weeks. Meanwhile, Pepe and his daughter, Darlene Sternberg of Simi Valley, eavesdropped on the characters and compared notes. Pepe solved the crime and was named the evening’s super sleuth.

The mystery centers on a work of art--actually commissioned for this show--donated by fictional Long Beach socialite J.W. Bennett, who brings a voluptuous wife half his age. Bennett soon alienates many of the guests with his pomposity, and no one is surprised when he is poisoned soon after dinner. The plot and the murderer are the same each night, but groups that have solved the mystery are asked not to give away the secret to their friends.

“Why would I want to kill one of the most famous people in Long Beach?” one cast member said after being accused by a member of the audience. “After all, there are so few.”

The cast takes the 50 guests through every corner of the red-brick museum, including the video library, offices and both floors of the gallery in search for clues. Along the way, characters talk about the museum and comment on the art.

“This piece looks like an altar to bird droppings,” Rebecca said to guests gathered around a permanent metallic sculpture in the gardens. The audience follows her and catches snippets of an argument between two characters on a nearby balcony. When the cast members on the balcony see that the guests are watching, they rush inside.

Some of the best laughs of the night are unscripted lines made by guests. “And he did these while studying in school,” the curator said, explaining some abstract olive-green paintings in the gallery.

“Was that grade school?” interrupted Delores Morgan, a Long Beach resident celebrating her birthday at the event. The curator acted put off by the outburst and laughter. The actors stayed in character, dined among the guests and toasted Morgan’s birthday at dinner.

“We love people interrupting us, unlike other shows where it’s inappropriate,” said actor Rory Johnston, who was playing Lance, a dashing character over whom Morgan swooned all during the show.

“So far, it hasn’t thrown us off, because we incorporate the guests into the story,” said Shakespearean-trained actress Terra Shelman, whose character, Rebecca, was being consoled by one of the guests, under the watchful eye of the guest’s wife.

In a mock news clip, the actual museum director, Joan Van Hooten, is interviewed. The previous director supposedly died after falling off a cliff behind the museum, and a serious story turns hysterical as a reporter interviews the surfer who found the body.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Van Hooten said about the fund-raiser, which started a month ago. “We’ve already had such good response.”

The food served in “Consequences” is catered by local Long Beach restaurants. The whole evening costs $49.50, with some proceeds going to the museum.

The idea came from Brian Mann, director and co-author, who plays a character known as “one of the Long Beach police’s rankest officers.” Mann started a similar mystery dinner theater in Laguna Beach about a year ago. “People come here (Long Beach) and really get caught up in the story with us, and that’s what makes this different.”

Dwayne Larson, a Long Beach high school psychologist who bore the brunt of many jokes because he spoke up so often, said the event piqued his interest in the museum--so he would return. Many guests thought Larson was part of the act.

“It was an interesting evening,” Larson said dryly. “It’s the first play I’ve ever been to where I’ve been accused of murder.”