Creators of the "Living Theater" murder mystery
interactive murder mystery theater: A REALLY BIG ROLE PLAYING GAME
In 1981 two role playing game designers, John Diaper and Larry Flournoy of Theatre Of The Mind Enterprises, Inc. (TOME, producers of adventures for Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer and Tekumel games) decided to create a full scale, real time role playing game based upon a murder mystery. They thought that they would attract “gamers” to their new venture, but, to their amazement found that it had much greater appeal to the general public. They soon realized that they had created a new entertainment genre which they coined “Living Theatre”.
In 1982 they decided to step up from their one night performances. They formed a new company, Gaslight Mystery Theatre, Inc., and staged their first murder mystery weekend at Saint Peter’s Village in Chester County, PA. By the end of 1982 guests were constantly asking if Gaslight Mystery Theatre was running a “Mystery Train” in New Jersey and if they were staging Murder Weekends in London, England (a natural question since John Diaper is British). The answer to both questions was, “No”. – It appeared that there had been something of a murder mystery creative spark in the ether because, at the same time, independently of each other, John and Larry had created Gaslight Mystery Theatre in Pennsylvania. David Landau had created Murder to Go in New York (Mystery Train). And Joy Swift formed Murder Weekends, Ltd in England.
Gaslight Mystery Theatre productions are completely self contained. We provide a Tested Script, a Director, a Staff of Professional Actors, Background Music. And High Quality Props.
Keywords: murder mystery, murder mystery dinner, murder mystery weekend, Ghost Stories, Philadelphia, New York, Atlantic City, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington DC, PA, DE, NJ, Sherlock Holmes, mysteries
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