i was a murder mystery dinner theater actor

my role? first-to-die. the job? weird as hell.

The setup is simple. About 45 people show up, find their seats, and mingle until — what’s this? The man at table eight is screaming, he’s bleeding from his tummy, he’s…

He’s dead.

Two detectives run out. “It’s going to be okay,” one says with the energy of a high school theater kid, “but no one can leave until we figure out whodunnit,” they explain.

The guests aren’t surprised by the death before them. They’re excited. This is a Murder Mystery Dinner, and it’s just getting started.  

The evening passes as the courses do: more people die, clues are revealed, and the guests walk around to see who’s up to no good, uncover clues, and figure out whotheheckdunnit.

It’s the type of thing that’d make my Soviet parents go ‘huh’ and my even more Soviet grandpa very angry. “They’re pretending? That something bad happened? So they can solve it?” 

But for Americankies, as my grandpa would say, it’s a fun atmosphere to let loose, slurp wines, and cosplay as Columbo.

becoming the first-to-die

I’d moved to Austin about a year and a half before. Enough time to figure out both how much I wanted to act and how hard it would be to actually do so. At this point, I was still sending this as my headshot. 

For anyone not in the industry, a headshot is generally supposed to, oh I don’t know, include your entire fucking face and not have at least 40% of it covered by a tiny towel. “Yes hi i’d like to be in your movie here is a photo to help you make this decision I will not show you my mouth because my mentor is the dude from Home Improvement whose face you never saw on the other side of the fence.” 

All this to say: it was a goddamn miracle that Mike, the guy in charge of Dinner Detective Austin, responded to my email and invited me to a rehearsal a few days later. I’d been connected to Mike because I did improv and apparently improvisers were the ideal candidates for the job - acting, but mostly reacting to whatever weird stuff happened on the night.

I came ready to audition. To improvise. To Act. There was nothing that mattered more than this single opportunity, and I could not blow it. 

Which made the two hours of me just standing there, watching and nodding over eagerly, brutal. Was this the audition? How was I doing? Should I laugh more? Less? Different? HA! ha. Heaha!

my first show was at a Marriott

There were seven of us - two ‘detectives,’ a ‘waiter,’ three ‘dinner guests’ – two of whom would die over the course of the night and one who was the murderer – and finally, yours truly, the first-to-die.

The first-to-die was, well, the first to die and the catalyst for the detectives to run out and get to work solving the mystery (with ample time for goofs). Newbies like me always started as first-to-die. I’d get paid the least, but I’d also be there for the least amount of time: just enough to die, really.  

Not to brag or anything but I was very good at being the first to die, like I had a 100% success rate. If you needed a guy to show up and die right away, I was the guy. 

Word must have spread, because a few days later I got a text from Mike asking if I’d be game to do a private party. It’d be different from the norm, but he thought I could handle it. In fact, he thought I was perfect for it.

The client was one of those quintessential 2010s tech darlings called ship&handle. They’d ship anything, especially weird stuff — boats, pianos, tombstones — which apparently made them rich. 

“They want us to come do a show during their holiday party…but, yea, it’s a strange one.” Mike explained, “You’re gonna be playing a guy named Jamie.”

Jamie Moreland

From Boston, went to Deerfield for Boarding school College at Brown – came from Financial Industry – looking for a career switch since the markets have imploded.  Lived in London for 3 years – knows EU well. Also worked the Asia desk for two years. Will be working with me to analyze new markets and model launch plans.

So a douchebag from Brown.

Little did they know, I’d spent the last four years method acting as a douchebag Brown undergrad for this very role. Sure, I studied screenwriting and psych instead of the whole Morgan Stanley dipshit thing, but that was mostly because I couldn’t understand any of the math stuff those guys had to do (macro economics is the big stuff, micro is the small stuff, what more is there to know).

“They want someone to come in and work a full day before the event starts,” Mike explained. 

Yup - these maniacs wanted someone from our cast to show up in the morning as a “new employee” and spend a full day in the office pretending to work while weirding everyone out, and THEN be first-to-die at the cocktail party that night. If that wasn’t enough, no one at the company knew a murder mystery was going to happen that night: it’d only be revealed once that first person died. 

“You’ve got this ‘fuck it, I'll be a weirdo for a day’ confidence,” Mike continued, “that makes me want to throw you in the mix. So…you free?”

This was far and away the biggest ‘gig’ I’d ever booked, so I was trying to keep it cool, stay professional, and appear like I was a hilarious actor comedian named Alex Dobrenko instead of the scared, eating-carrots-in-my-car-while-waiting-until-I’d-made-myself-late-to-places-because-of-NERVES sort of first-to-die kinda guy.

Was I free? No, but Jamie Moreland was.

my first handler

Unlike everyone else’s call time of 5:15 pm, I had to be at the ship&handle office by 10am to start my ‘first day.’ 

I was nervous, but was Jamie? Or would he not be nervous because he was crazy?

I stood outside, staring at the entrance and wondered about the nervous-to-crazy ratio until I — no, Jamie — was late. 

Classic Jamie. 

Walking in, I sorta screamed with a faux confidence that read as genuine terror,“Hi I’m, uh, Jamie – Jamie Moreland! Yes, uh, yea so I am, well I’m here for - is Rebecca?”

Rebecca, I was briefed, was my primary handler. Almost everyone else, including the woman at the front desk - Nikki - was clueless. I wondered what to do if Nikki wasn’t cooperative. Eliminate her, of course. Surely we could fold one more murder into the whole murder mystery thing, right? When I died later, someone could find Nikki’s body and go, “Nikki’s dead too!” I was sure my comedy detectives would figure it out. 

“Ah yes hi!” she answered, having no idea her life has just been spared. “Let me ping Rebecca for you.” 

“Awesome,” I said, an absolutely classic thing for Jamie to say. 

"Jamie, hi! I'm Rebecca," she said, waving her hand. 

Whether or not that is her real name I will never know. 

Rebecca walked me past the reception area and whispered, "Hi Alex, nice to meet you."

My first test… answering as Alex could get me fired on the spot. Letting go of all my training and just reacting authentically in the moment, I responded with a simple “Hi.”

She smiled and kept walking. I’d passed the first test.

next up: the boss

“We want you to be as weird as possible.”

That was Martin, the sorta muscly CEO. He and Frank, the more clean cut COO standing next to him, were the masterminds behind this little prank. 

“Not right away,” Frank jumped in. “But over the course of the day, you’ll get progressively weirder. Then at the cocktail party, go nuts.”

“Right,” I said, “Easy.” 

It would not, in fact, be easy.

Weirdness is a hard thing to portray. It’s like when you have to act drunk in a scene. If you *act* drunk, that’s what it will look like – an idiot who is trying really hard to make people think that he’s drunk. Sure, that guy might also be drunk, but that's not what everyone is going to see. 

So as an actor, you’re taught that when your character is drunk, your ‘want’ (hi tech acting term) is to try and make sure everyone thinks you’re sober. That way, you’ll look like someone who is trying to be sober, aka someone who is probably drunk (or insane). 

I’d figured it out. I would be a weird Jamie by trying hard to be normal. Luckily, I’d been trying to do that every single day of my weird little life. 

the day 

On the way to my desk on the second floor, I was introduced to the coders, the design team, sales, and customer support. I said hi to everyone and they all said hi back. Flawless execution of my role as Jamie.

Seated at my desk, I felt the glares of everyone around me, each asking themselves that timeless question one always asks upon meeting a new colleague: “is this guy for real or is he a plant set up to work here for just today and then die at night to trigger a full on murder mystery dinner party??”

To pass the time, I did what I always do when I’m nervous: drank too much water, smiled nervously while looking around, and drafted emails I wouldn’t actually ever send.

An hour passed and somehow I still worked at ship&handle.

“It’s time for the white elephant gift exchange!” someone screamed, and everyone scurried down to the kitchen.

white elephant gift exchange

All of a sudden, everyone was wearing ugly christmas sweaters. Except me. No one thought to tell Jamie about the Ugly Sweater Contest, but Jamie honestly sort of loved that. 

They did remember to tell me about the white elephant, though. My handlers had added a gift from me but didn’t tell me what it was. I, of course, had to pretend like I knew. This, once again, was acting, and by this point I felt like I was doing a pretty good job at it. Maybe? How does one know? Should I ask if I seemed believable? NO. That would not be acting.

Soon enough, there were only three gifts left under the tree, and Jamie’s gift had not yet been picked. Martin the CEO was up next. He went up to the tree and picked a longish object. He looked around and smiled at everyone like, “What the heck will this be?” 

Unwrapping it, I heard him say, shocked, “What the hell?” 

A nearby woman read the FROM: card “Jamie Moreland.”

It was a water bong.

For most everyone at the company, this was the first time they even knew I existed. And with all of their eyes staring at me, I had to make my first real acting choice. Rather than go hardcore stoner and say “Y’all love getting high, right??” I decide to keep it understated. Muted. I let it rip with with a cheeky lil smile that says “yea I’m crazy I know it so what sue me.”

Everyone just sort of stared at me, and then at Martin, and then back at me. To my knowledge, this part wasn’t planned. The CEO knew about the bong but I don’t think they orchestrated that he would select it. Nonetheless, he reacted with a pitch perfect front of ‘ha ha funny stuff’ under which boiled a ‘this man is dead to me’ rage.

Martin was clearly a method actor of acclaim, himself probably having been put into the role of CEO one day a long time ago for a murder mystery dinner that never came. 

— 

When writing this story, I sent a hail mary email to the ship&handle support line, “Hey do y’all remember when this idiot pretended to work at your company for a day? Does anyone recall what happened that night?” 

Two days later over the transom came a response from Jami:

Hi Alex,

WOW, what a blast from the past! You might be surprised to hear that there are a few of us remaining from the old days, myself included. I also happen to be one of the people you were specifically instructed to agitate, which makes me uniquely positioned to respond. 

The story was this: you were hired as a global business development specialist, or something of that nature, reporting to Shawn, who I believe was Head of Global at the time. You were introduced to the entire company at the All Hands that morning at which we did a White Elephant gift exchange. ‘You’ brought a bong! We’ve always liked to have fun, but that was a bit much.

That last line kills me. “That was a bit much.” 

back to the bong gift

So much for ‘being weird by trying to be normal.’ I’d just learned that I, Jamie Moreland, am the bong-to-the-company-gift-exchange guy? This wasn’t the Jamie I knew, not at all. But as a great cartographer once said, we contain latitudes.

I am not just one Alex from hither and yon - I am dada at home and Al with my friends and Sasha with my parents and someone else entirely when working for Dinner Detective. Literally, I'm someone else — Jamie Moreland, a man I thought I knew. How little did I know?

Most people mozied back to their desks for the afternoon, dazed and emotionally recovering from the whole bong thing, but Jamie wasn’t about to waste his time doing actual work. Instead, he stayed in the common area with a group of about five young upstarts gathered around the ping pong table, ready to play. 

“I WANT NEXT,” I screamed. 

That got everyone’s attention. I perked up too. This right here, this was Jamie. He was free. He screamed. HE SCREAMED! He was a stoner anarchist with a poor understanding of how to behave around other people, but my nerves mixed with a Napoleonic complex shared by Alex and Jamie, and here we were. 

Minutes later, Jamie was playing ping pong. 

Which meant it was time for another actor’s choice. See, Alex Dobrenko is very good at ping pong. Described by my friends in high school as “the second or third best of all of us,” I had talent. But did Jamie? Was Jamie a hustler about to steal everyone’s $, or was he a doofus whose social anxiety caused him to SCREAM things?

Yes. 

I switched between unnecessary but super effective spin shots and SLAMS that would actually shoot up into the air after touching my paddle rather than come down in the general direction you’d need to be going to hit the table. Jamie was on fire.

time to get weird(er)

5 pm came around (TGIF!! classic!) and most people went home to change and come back for the party. But not Jamie. Jamie always has ‘going out’ clothes with him, I explained to a handful of ship&handlers who stuck around to set up for the party. Little makeshift bars popped up everywhere and the snacks – lord, the snacks. Chips and yellow salsa? Zucchini tots? Dates wrapped in fucking bacon??

This was the main event. This was showtime. Jamie was having a ball, but Jamie was also nervous.

And so, Jamie ate an edible. 

Then Jamie started feeling awkward and antisocial.

So, Jamie started drinking. 

That doesn’t sound professional you’re probably thinking, but remember - this wasn’t Alex, this was Jamie. Acting choices 101 stuff really.  

“What do you do?” I asked a guy wearing plaid.

“I’m an engineer here.”

“Omg is that crazy? Are you a hacker?? Could you hack? Just asking.” 

The engineer walked away and I checked my watch - 5:20 pm and I was as loose as an Ikea screw. Floating, that’s how it felt, like I was floating like a ghost in heaven.

I saddled up to a couple dudes who looked like they were still in the throes of a six-year bender that started senior year of college. So, Jamie’s sort of guys.

“I feel like you guys are honestly like my best friends!” I told them. 

“Yea…yea, for sure man,” they’d say back, their voices scared, but also maybe a little intrigued. 

“No, I’m serious man, I’ve had – and lost – a lot of best friends, stupid fights and stuff, and grrrrr, anyways, I feel like this is gonna be different.” 

“...”

“Honestly, and I know this is a lil crazy, but would y’all wanna ever do a sleepover?”

“A sleepover?” 

“Yeah, you know like we’d used to do in middle school or whatever? I never really did those because my parents were DUMB but like, now I can do what I want I live like an hour from them so they can’t even catch me unless they drove over which they would do which they have done but anyway yeah – sleepovers!” 

“Yea man I think, maybe, Idk I think we’re probably…” 

Getting the hint, I’d get sort of sad and say, “Yeah, no it’s probably stupid, I was just thinking we could like eat popcorn and talk about girls and fart in our sleeping bags.”

They said nothing.

“Sleepovers,” I said again. 

Nothing, again. 

“It's gonna be sick I’ll email you guys about it!” 

Silence.

the big moment

Remember Jami from earlier? Well, it turned out she and Jamie had the night’s biggest run-in. Here’s her version: 

You were given instructions to get under certain people’s skin throughout the day and night, and you were pumped with just the right information to effectively do so. Example: I’m from NY and everyone thought it was hilarious to constantly say I was from Jersey. You took this and ran. 

At the party itself, they had you walking around with a bottle of Wild Turkey and acting sloppy drunk. Your button-pushing continued. I can’t remember if you were the “murder victim” - I actually don’t think you were (?), but I do remember that I finally lost my cool with you and I was MORTIFIED when it was revealed you were a hired actor! I suppose you should take this as a compliment - you were very convincing in your role. 

I hope this trip down memory lane helps with your essay and I’m sorry for unleashing my ‘Brooklyn’ all those years ago.

Getting under Jami’s skin ended up being my final bit of the night. 

Halfway through screaming, “I’m from the BRONX so I think I’d know a thing or two about NEW YORK” in Jami-from-New-York’s general direction, there was a gunshot.

Everyone looked around, 10% scared and 90% confused.

Everyone except me. Because I knew what they’d soon find out. I’d been shot, and so I ‘died.’ The first-to-die.

The gunshot was super fake sounding, and I was instructed to sell it very badly so no one would actually fear that someone had been shot, so I monotone whisper-screamed, “I’ve been shot oh no how could it happen why me why me? My career was just getting started…” 

I then did my best dramatic flail to the floor as the two Dinner Detectives ran out with their badges up screaming, “Everyone listen up: there’s been a murder.” 

And so their show began as my show ended.

Jamie Moreland was dead.

Or was he? 

back to Alex

Walking out of ship&handle and into the evening air, I was Alex again. But something was different.

It was like I’d been shown for a brief moment what the world was really like - life was the Matrix, reality was Jamie Moreland. I was free. 

Twelve years later, and I can still taste that feeling. Dates, bacon, and freedom. America, in a nutshell. Or dateshell.

It was so fucking liberating to not care what people thought for a little bit. Or, more specifically, to know that they were probably thinking all sorts of shit but not care at all about it. 

But isn’t that feeling sort of always available to us, I wonder to myself as I write this? Being from another country, I’d always defaulted to assuming I was weird as shit. That freedom of just…being okay with who you were, I’d never felt that way before Jamie. In fact, I’d always felt the opposite, which, of course, isn’t unique to immigrants. Everyone feels like they don’t belong.

Which makes sense given how life is set up. There’s you and then there’s literally everyone else, so who are you going to bet on? Only an insane person would bet on themselves.

But what if you did?

We forget that every day is a first day to be whoever the fuck we want to be. Let the you who you believe yourself to be die. Become someone else. Hell, be Jamie Moreland.

after party

I went back to ship&handle a couple hours later, as the murder mystery was wrapping up. I was welcomed back like the star after a one-man show on Broadway entitled “Jamie.”

It felt so good to live in this post-real space with all of them. For a night, it felt like all of us were a bit more free. As Mike put it, “I remember that after your death employees of the company were actually relieved because they did not want to work with you. Some even cheered at your demise.”

The CEO told me that an executive came up to him at some point and said, “I have never doubted any decision you’ve made at this company…until today. I cannot work with that guy.” 

Most people agreed, but not everyone. 

One of the dudes from the bro brigade took me aside and said, with sadness, “Man, I was super excited about us being friends.” 

Neither he nor I brought up the sleepover.

The rest of the night is fuzzy, though Mike remembered the following:

One of my last memories..was when the show was over and we were packing up to say goodbye. I went into the CEO's office and I swear I remember you in there partying with him, maybe even smoking cigars, and you were like, ‘I think I'm going to stay and hang out tonight.’ and you did. Everyone else left.

I don’t remember that at all, which makes sense. I’d left by then, and all that remained, for at least that one brief, perfect night, was Jamie Moreland.

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comments

1. if you were cast as Jamie Moreland and told to go nuts weirding out a bunch of employees, what would you do?

2. have you ever worked in murder mystery theater or any other weird ass job? do tell

3. if you could walk into work and be whoever you wanted and no one would remember who you used to be, who would you decide to be

5. sleepovers for grown men feels like a big time missed opportunity, eh fellas? FELLAS?