OMGAWD that was hilarious! Thank you for making me laugh so hard I wept (I'd use LOL or the LOL emoji, but they are so overused they don't really mean that, and I really was having a conniption). I especially loved the bro sleepover dialogue and all the commentary that came in afterward about how much everyone hated Jamie. I think if I were acting a role like this I'd just prepare a bunch of cringey oversharing stories to make people really uncomfortable. I can see how it felt liberating to be able to be someone else for a day and not care how people responded. That must be how it feels to be Sasha Baron Cohen.
I've been going through a sad time, and I really appreciated this great lift in my day. Thank you.
This is such good writing. Stanning! also: “They’re pretending? That something bad happened? So they can solve it?” is exactly how I feel about horror films. Like, isn't life full of horror? I don't need to scare myself artificially, my nervous system is at a full 10 alarm most of my waking hours... I am, obviously, loving the takeaway here, to be whomever you want to be when you wake that day <3
When I was 19 I transferred to an out of state university where I knew 6 people on a campus of 39,000 students so I changed my first name and became who I wanted to be. Some people feel like you've been lying to them when they find out they've been calling you a name that bears no resemblance to the one on your birth certificate, but I knew that I was more myself during those years than I'd ever been.
I love this! I did two years of interactive murder mystery dinner theater. First year was wedding-themed and I was the bride's promiscuous sister/maid of honor. The audience got to vote regarding who they thought did it, and that person ended up being the killer.
Second year, pirate-themed, and I played the sidekick to the pirate captain. On our big swashbuckling entrance one night, I felt like someone kicked me in the back of the ankle as I stepped into the dining room. But no one was behind me. I had on tall boots, which acted as a makeshift splint. I only had a few lines which I got out while panicking about what to do. See, I was the entertainment while the rest of the cast searched for the treasure -- I led the guests in a rousing chorus of "A Pirate's Life for Me".
The body is discovered and then the diners eat while the actors take a break. I explained what happened to my fellow cast members, and due to how difficult it would be to change everything around, I did the whole show on my hurt foot. I mean, pirates have peg legs and limp, right?
Another of my big parts was to take around a small treasure chest of evidence and show a different piece to each table. (They all get discovered and shown to the whole audience eventually.) Also, one of my colleagues (my day job was an English teacher) and his new girlfriend were there, and I didn't want to leave the show when they had purposefully come to see me. When I got to their table, I showed them a dagger and I said it reminded me of a play I saw once: Twelve Angry Pirate. We had just begun a unit with our sophomores teaching Twelve Angry Men, and a knife features prominently in that play.
Anyway, I make it to that emergency room after the show, and I find out I ruptured my Achilles tendon. It must have been the adrenaline or a high pain tolerance that got me through that performance!
I miss doing those shows. They were all original scripts, and I wrote one for the company to perform, set at a 1940s radio show with a live audience, but sadly, the venue we were using was sold and the new owners weren't interested in doing the dinner theatre anymore.
Killer, here! 🙋🏻♀️ Well, “Influential Madame of the Town Whorehouse”/“Who Did It”… While I didn’t get to embed surreptitiously in company culture before hand (sick twist!!), I did get to sing my confession with live piano accompaniment and wear a corset dress three sizes too small because it was made for the previous lead who suddenly left the show….my big break!
BWAHA!! Oh my god. Snort-coughs abounded over here as I read this during my lunch break at my Corp Hell job. I wanted to laugh out loud so bad. Espesh about the water bong. I would've lost it had I been reading this at home. The fact that a company would even THINK to do something like this for their employees, even have you come in and "work" there first and be all obnoxious, is fucking. Awesome. How long did you do that job? I've participated as a dinner guest at one of those. Thought it was a little cheesy and thought the actors were trying a little too hard to make too Sherlock Holmes-ish.
This is an absolute banger of a story, the piece that got me hooked on your newsletter in the first place 🔥
OMGAWD that was hilarious! Thank you for making me laugh so hard I wept (I'd use LOL or the LOL emoji, but they are so overused they don't really mean that, and I really was having a conniption). I especially loved the bro sleepover dialogue and all the commentary that came in afterward about how much everyone hated Jamie. I think if I were acting a role like this I'd just prepare a bunch of cringey oversharing stories to make people really uncomfortable. I can see how it felt liberating to be able to be someone else for a day and not care how people responded. That must be how it feels to be Sasha Baron Cohen.
I've been going through a sad time, and I really appreciated this great lift in my day. Thank you.
This is such good writing. Stanning! also: “They’re pretending? That something bad happened? So they can solve it?” is exactly how I feel about horror films. Like, isn't life full of horror? I don't need to scare myself artificially, my nervous system is at a full 10 alarm most of my waking hours... I am, obviously, loving the takeaway here, to be whomever you want to be when you wake that day <3
When I was 19 I transferred to an out of state university where I knew 6 people on a campus of 39,000 students so I changed my first name and became who I wanted to be. Some people feel like you've been lying to them when they find out they've been calling you a name that bears no resemblance to the one on your birth certificate, but I knew that I was more myself during those years than I'd ever been.
I love this! I did two years of interactive murder mystery dinner theater. First year was wedding-themed and I was the bride's promiscuous sister/maid of honor. The audience got to vote regarding who they thought did it, and that person ended up being the killer.
Second year, pirate-themed, and I played the sidekick to the pirate captain. On our big swashbuckling entrance one night, I felt like someone kicked me in the back of the ankle as I stepped into the dining room. But no one was behind me. I had on tall boots, which acted as a makeshift splint. I only had a few lines which I got out while panicking about what to do. See, I was the entertainment while the rest of the cast searched for the treasure -- I led the guests in a rousing chorus of "A Pirate's Life for Me".
The body is discovered and then the diners eat while the actors take a break. I explained what happened to my fellow cast members, and due to how difficult it would be to change everything around, I did the whole show on my hurt foot. I mean, pirates have peg legs and limp, right?
Another of my big parts was to take around a small treasure chest of evidence and show a different piece to each table. (They all get discovered and shown to the whole audience eventually.) Also, one of my colleagues (my day job was an English teacher) and his new girlfriend were there, and I didn't want to leave the show when they had purposefully come to see me. When I got to their table, I showed them a dagger and I said it reminded me of a play I saw once: Twelve Angry Pirate. We had just begun a unit with our sophomores teaching Twelve Angry Men, and a knife features prominently in that play.
Anyway, I make it to that emergency room after the show, and I find out I ruptured my Achilles tendon. It must have been the adrenaline or a high pain tolerance that got me through that performance!
I miss doing those shows. They were all original scripts, and I wrote one for the company to perform, set at a 1940s radio show with a live audience, but sadly, the venue we were using was sold and the new owners weren't interested in doing the dinner theatre anymore.
Another great piece, Alex, and sadly relatable!
1. I hope I would have done it as well as you.
2. Yes. Three years of murder mystery dinner theater. Perhaps we should have a thread of stories by all the Substackers who have acted in MMDT.
3. Me.
4. Hi.
5. Uh, no thank you.
3. Batman. Always be Batman
This is my favourite thing on the entire internet today. Maybe this WEEK. 10/10
I'm so sorry Alex, but I cannot read the essay until you tell me how the towel smelled. I only scrolled down to tell you this.
HA! Funny Stuff! I too did that murder mystery dinner train thang! A long time ago!
Killer, here! 🙋🏻♀️ Well, “Influential Madame of the Town Whorehouse”/“Who Did It”… While I didn’t get to embed surreptitiously in company culture before hand (sick twist!!), I did get to sing my confession with live piano accompaniment and wear a corset dress three sizes too small because it was made for the previous lead who suddenly left the show….my big break!
BWAHA!! Oh my god. Snort-coughs abounded over here as I read this during my lunch break at my Corp Hell job. I wanted to laugh out loud so bad. Espesh about the water bong. I would've lost it had I been reading this at home. The fact that a company would even THINK to do something like this for their employees, even have you come in and "work" there first and be all obnoxious, is fucking. Awesome. How long did you do that job? I've participated as a dinner guest at one of those. Thought it was a little cheesy and thought the actors were trying a little too hard to make too Sherlock Holmes-ish.
Great piece, Alex. I laughed, I cried, I felt Jamie’s presence. But, I still must decline the sleepover invitation.
Jamie!
I laughed out loud so many times reading this! 😆❤️
This was incredible! I laughed out loud so many times! Thank you