Golden West Plans Another Killer Summer : The College’s Tradition of Staging Whodunits Has Grown--Along With Its Audience

Has any author sold more books than Dame Agatha Christie, queen of the mystery genre? More than 2 billion copies of her 78 crime novels have been purchased (annual sales are at least3 million, for yearly estate royalties of $5 million to $10 million) and have been translated into more than 60 languages. Plus, there are more than a dozen exceedingly durable plays--including “The Mousetrap,” now in its 39th continuous year in London, making it thelongest-running play in history.

Here in Orange County, Christie also may be setting a record of a sort: Golden West College is in its ninth year of performing her plays as part of its summer theater program. “Christie fans have such loyalty, it’s amazing,” says Charles Mitchell, coordinating director of the program, which this year includes Christie’s “The Spider’s Web” among its four offerings. “We get people driving in from L.A. to see us, which is something when you stop to think we’re just a community college.”

“The Spider’s Web,” about a dinner party that ends in murder, will be the second play in this year’s Golden West Summer Mystery Festival, which begins Thursday with Ira Levin’s psychological chiller, “Veronica’s Room.” “The Spider’s Web” opens June 21; “Laura” and the one-act “Mr. Snoop Is Murdered” open June 27.

“Veronica’s Room” and “Snoop” will be staged in the 50-seat Playbox Theater; “Spider’s Web” and “Laura” will be staged in the nearby Outdoor Patio Theater, which can seat up to 250.

At Golden West, by the way, the audience gets to guess whodunit. Before each play comes to an end, viewers are invited to fill out ballots. After the murderer/murderers are revealed, a winner is picked from those who guessed right. The prize: a mystery book--by Christie.

It was in 1982 that Golden West first found that crime--and Christie--indeed pays with summertime audiences. That year, four performances of Christie’s “The Unexpected Guest” proved more popular than two comedies that also were being presented. The following year, Golden West tried another Christie play and succeeded at the box office again.

“So the tradition grew from there, and so did our audience,” says Mitchell, himself something of a tradition at Golden West, where he has taught for 24 years. Last summer, Golden West celebrated the 100th anniversary of Christie’s birth (she died in 1976) with a Christie roster that included “The Mousetrap,” “Black Coffee” and two one-acts, “The Patient” and “The Rats.”

Golden West is offering mysteries by authors other than Christie this year simply “to give both the audiences and the actors some variety. And anyway,” Mitchell says, “we’re running out of Christie plays.” He notes that Golden West has already presented both “The Mousetrap” and “The Unexpected Guest” more than once. The problem isn’t a lack of plays, he says, so much as the difficulty in having college students present some of them.

“Some have a lot of middle-age characters, which poses an obvious problem for us.” A prime example: Christie’s popular “Ten Little Indians,” which Golden West has yet to tackle. Nor has the school attempted “Witness for the Prosecution,” which calls for a cast of more than 20. “The Christie plays we’ve done usually have 10 to 15 cast members,” Mitchell says. “But I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be doing ‘Witness’ down the road.”

This year’s mystery bill:

* “ ‘Veronica’s Room” is a Gothic mystery about a strange house and its residents. Author Levin also wrote the mystery novel “A Kiss Before Dying” and the play “Deathtrap,” as well as such fantasies as “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Stepford Wives.” Guest director Michael Stanley Weiss has appeared on TV (he made regular appearances on CBS’s “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill”), in films and in regional and community theater productions. “Veronica’s Room,” opens Thursday in the Golden West Playbox Theater, where it will continue Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. through June 9.

* Christie’s “The Spider’s Web,” originally performed in 1954, will be directed by Steven Jay Warner, who has worked with the Cabrillo Playhouse in San Clemente. It will be staged in the Outdoor Patio Theater at 8:30 p.m. June 21, 22, 29 and 30 and July 3, 5, 11, 12, 17, 20 and 21.

* “Laura” is the stage adaptation of the 1944 film that starred Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, about a detective who finds himself falling in love with a portrait of a homicide victim. Rarely performed, it will be directed by Mitchell and presented in the Outdoor Patio Theater at 8:30 p.m. June 27 and 28 and July 6, 7, 13, 14, 16, 18 and 19.

* Mitchell also will direct the one-act “Mr. Snoop Is Murdered,” about a celebrity gossip columnist who is killed in the midst of his radio program. In the Playbox, at 7:15 on the same evenings as “Laura.”

Tickets for “Veronica’s Room,” “The Spider’s Web” and “Laura” are $8 and $9. Tickets for “Mr. Snoop Is Murdered” are $2. Outdoor Patio Theater audiences are encouraged to bring blankets. Information: (714) 895-8378.