GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER THEATER

IT’S a Saturday night at the French restaurant Taix in Echo Park, and a couple of drag queens named Roxxi Botoxxi and Sandy Mangina are engaging an audience of increasingly tipsy Eastsiders. Mangina, a.k.a. Ben Been, a brunet in a hoop skirt, surveys the male patrons with an overheated up-and-down stare and banters uneasily with the women.

“So what’s your story?” she says, audaciously catty.

Before you have time to reply, she breaks off, relaying a piece of seemingly inane gossip about one of her three achingly plucked, padded and powdered castmates in the year-old Drama Queen Theater. By the time the show begins -- it’s a light murder mystery that includes a dance contest and an Amazonian detective with a name that can’t be printed here -- all sense of decorum has been lost, or at least redefined.

This is dinner theater, reinvented. The Drama Queens’ version of the venerable theatrical institution represents something of the lunatic fringe, to be sure, but throughout the Southland small troupes are applying their own twist to a form that probably saw its heyday in the 1980s but lately has had all the sizzle of a mullet.

The vision of cold, dark places with over-emotive actors in crooked wigs and circles of rouge has been replaced with quick, clever productions that increasingly rely on the formula of the murder mystery. Most invite crowd participation -- where else can you be accused of a heinous crime over dessert? And, yes, the performers are generally real people with day jobs involving things like hard drives and research reports, but there’s something cathartic about the proximity of audience to actor. It’s not as if Laurence Fishburne is going to sit down next to you at the Pasadena Playhouse for an extemporaneous bit.

Traditional dinner theater is still out there, but for now we flitted about the Southland with one question: Whodunit?

The Dinner Detective

If the State, the ‘90s comedy troupe with Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black, ever reunited to start a dinner theater production, it might have the same vibe as the Dinner Detective, which features a young cast plucked from Improv Olympic, Groundlings and Second City. The show at Cucino Paradiso restaurant in the Palms neighborhood bounces between tongue-in-cheek noir, easy gags and raunchy improv.

Kelly, 31, and Scott O’Brien, 29, met while working for TV guru David E. Kelley, using Scott’s experience as a crime researcher for “The Practice” to start the Dinner Detective in 2004. They’ve sold out nearly every show, which they credit to keeping the script loose. “The actors know when they need to hit this beat or that, but we want it to be able to go in 10 different directions,” Scott says. “We want the audience to shape the show.”

And the audience -- young, extroverted and energetic -- is up to the task. Guests make up names, and Joe, the host, hands out sheets with suggested interrogation questions such as “Do I look good in this outfit?” Later, hard-nosed cops played by John Abbott and Ronn Ozuk sidle up to tables and give the guests a hard time. To a tattooed, goateed man from Palmdale, Ozuk barks: “So, Alice in Chains, what secrets do you have to hide?”

As the night unfolds, the detectives continue their teasing, and two women in their 50s who call themselves the Jersey Girls respond in kind, cracking wise at every possible juncture. After the show, one of the actors, Chris Alvarado, claims that one of the Jersey Girls gave him a hug and then licked his ear. “I was not expecting that,” he says with a laugh. “But then she also slipped me her card and she’s an executive producer at some TV network, so I guess it’s OK.”

Gourmet Detective

The setting is pure Orange County: The Mezzanine Restaurant is tucked away in a glass-and-steel mini-scraper that is tucked away in an office park. But this Irvine production is charmingly modest -- a mix of sloppy theatrics, wink-wink silliness and gentle nostalgia.

It’s the brainchild of husband-and-wife team Craig Wilson and Tracy Hulette, who started the Gourmet Detective in 1990 with no theater background. “We’re both sort of shy,” Wilson says. “We didn’t want to create an interactive theater environment that’s frightening for the audience.”

Unless you have a fear of feather boas, you’re safe here. Actress Katherine Prenovost, a UCLA researcher by day, stomps around and plays to a crowd that includes college students in hoodies and a table of chatty couples in their late 30s. The traditional production, “Darling, You Slay Me,” is a 1920s throwback that uses the play-within-a-play convention. While the audience dines, characters with names such as Dick March and April June swish around with cigarette holders, pouring stiff drinks, accusing one another in growls and purrs and invoking healthy doses of bawdy-but-PG humor. Have you heard the one about the casting couch?

Keith & Margo’s

Murder Mystery

Founded in 1985, the longest-running murder-mystery dinner theater outfit in Los Angeles seeks to emulate the satisfying procedural plotting of “Law & Order,” but with a big dose of interactive comedy. With actors embedded in the audience, the show is very realistic, which has led to unexpected ramifications in the past. At the weekend murder mystery events the group hosts at hotels, “people break into each other’s rooms,” co-founder Margo Morrison says. The actors have gone overboard too: On a train-bound event, an actor posing as a real detective reported a “murder” to an Amtrak employee, bringing the locomotive to a halt for two hours.

The dinner show, every Saturday at the sparkling West L.A. restaurant Aphrodisiac, starts with a social hour. The actors, disguised as regular Joes, are there too, but it’s difficult to tell who’s who.

The main show takes place in the plush dining room. The first murder is surrounded by lots of hullabaloo involving popguns. A tiny woman bursts in, wearing an LAPD jacket. Feisty Anita Goodwin, a Keith & Margo veteran of 10 years, grills members of the audience and reveals a dizzying array of clues, including the unfailingly exciting ransom note. At the end, guests are allowed more time (than at other shows) to pore over the clues and unravel the intricate plot. It’s indicative of the kind of fan Keith & Margo’s attracts: a serious sleuth who tears into problem-solving like it’s a bloody steak.

Mysteries En Brochette

Mysteries En Brochette is the light-rock station of dinner theater -- easy, unassuming and safe for work. Situated in Marina del Rey’s Harbor House, a moderately classy seafood restaurant, Brochette caters to a crowd that wants to get cheeky on a Friday night but not to the point that it will embarrass Mom.

There are no embedded actors here, only performers in tuxes and gowns, using their best enunciation to play to the intimate room. Brochette founder Muriel Minot, a singing instructor, prefers to keep the action out in the open.

“The more remarkable aspects to us are the scripting, the music and choreography,” she says. “When you have red herrings and simultaneous action and embedded actors, that doesn’t always play to the whole room.” Minot uses what she calls “hand-out characters,” i.e., assigning a role to a game audience member, to get the crowd involved.

There are two murders in “Hollywood’s Fatal Premiere,” one of Brochette’s rotating themed productions. But Brochette is more about the music, in a very round-the-campfire kind of way. There are goofy-sweet singalongs to Broadway chestnuts and well-worn radio hits. One of the highlights is Christopher Gehrman’s rendition of “Trouble” from “The Music Man” -- a marvelously off-kilter version that’s a little bit scat, a little bit rap.

Julie Cortez and Aldo Maldonado, a couple in their late 20s from Culver City, are here to celebrate their anniversary. “This is different from just going to a dinner or a club, but I really like it,” Cortez says. “I think this means we’re getting older.”

Drama Queen Theater

From the very beginning, the Drama Queens are not for the faint of heart.

The effervescent hostess, a full-blooded woman in a slinky dress, christens guests with drag queen versions of their real names, and the show races off from there, flirting with full-on chaos at every turn.

The humor is sharp but friendly. “Most people want to be pushed a little bit, but I’m never mean-spirited about it,” Ben Been says.

The opening social hour belongs to the queens, who publicly diss each other. The guests are encouraged to mingle as they snack on smoked salmon and fruit, and after the production gets rolling, it’s a rambunctious, hyperactive hoot.

There’s a dance contest involving the queens and audience members, but the highlight is easily the fierce spectacle of caricatured womanhood, the detective lieutenant. With her popgun and a cinched trench, she commands the room -- Sam Spade as channeled by Foxy Brown.

What’s on the menu? After a bit of the detective lieutenant’s overzealous frisking, who remembers?

margaret.wappler@latimes.com

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Dinner and a show

A selection of the Southland scene:

Gourmet Detective

Mezzanine Restaurant, 19800 MacArthur Blvd., Irvine. (949) 724-1066; www.gourmetdetective.com. $65 includes a three-course dinner, show and tax. Mellow and nostalgic, it emphasizes ‘20s-themed entertainment with its “Bullets Over Broadway”-style show, “Darling, You Slay Me.” Bring a feather boa.

The Dinner Detective

Cucina Paradiso, 3387 Motor Ave., L.A. (866) 496-0535; www.dinnerdetective.com.$62.95 includes a four-course dinner, show, gratuity and live music after the show. Young and spunky with an emphasis on improv, the Dinner Detective offers an interactive, high-energy show. Scripts and actors rotate frequently. And there’s a chalk body outline on the floor.

Drama Queen Theater

Taix Restaurant, 1911 Sunset Blvd., Echo Park. (310) 949-9255; www.dqtheater.com. $68 includes a four-course dinner, tax, gratuity and show. Imagine a bunch of drag queens running around, accusing each other of horrible crimes while self-aggrandizing their own fabulousness at every turn.

Keith & Margo’s Murder Mystery Dinner Theater

The Witness Room (Aphrodisiac), 10351 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. (877) 528-9015; www.murdermystery.com. $78 includes a three-course dinner, tax, gratuity, show and after-show jazz. Like an episode of “Law & Order” but with fewer twists and more high jinks. For fans who take their murder mysteries black and unsweetened.

Curtain Call Dinner Theater

690 El Camino Real, Tustin. (714) 838-1540; www.curtaincalltheater.com. $36.95 to $47.95 includes a two-course dinner and show. The oldest dinner theater in Southern California opened its doors in April 1980. Now showing “Oklahoma!” Upcoming shows include “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “Annie.” P.S. The theater doesn’t serve alcohol.

Mysteries En Brochette

Harbor House Restaurant, 4211 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey. (310) 399-1507; www.mysteriesenbrochette.com. $72 includes a four-course dinner, tax, gratuity and show. A mix of bloody murder and show tunes, dusty oldies and whatever else the Brochette gang feels like digging out of the musical trunk.

Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater

455 Foothill Blvd., Claremont. (909) 626-1254; www.candlelightpavilion.com. $41 to $72 includes a two-course dinner and show. Housed in the old Claremont High School’s gymnasium, this is a traditional Vegas-like experience. The 2007 season includes “Suessical the Musical,” “My Fair Lady” and “Space Oddity.”

Sharpo! Murder Mystery Dinner

Queen Mary, 1126 Queen’s Highway, Long Beach. (562) 435-3511. queenmary.com/index.phppagesharpomurdermystery. $70 includes a four-course dinner and show. Does it get any better than a murder mystery aboard a historical ocean liner populated with waterlogged ghosts? Nevermind a life jacket; come with an alibi.