Marriage Can Be Murder (2005)

WRITTEN BY: James Daab
PERFORMED AT:
* Captain Bill's Seneca Lake Cruises, Watkins Glen
* National Soaring Museum, Harris Hill, Elmira
PERFORMED ON:
* July 30 and August 27, 2005 (September 24 show cancelled)
* October 21 and 22, 2005
DIRECTOR: Debbie Troia
SPONSORED BY: Market Street Irregulars
CAST AND CREW:
* ALPHONSO- David A. Scott
* FATHER OF THE BRIDE- William Christoffels
* MARGE/MADGE- Amanda Fenn
* BRIDE- Lynne Hodges
* GROOM- Jeffrey Smith
* MISTY- Debbie Troia
* RONNIE- Katie O'Herron
* KEYBOARDIST- Donna Christoffels
* BEST MAN- selected friend or audience member
* BRIDE'S MAID- selected friend or audience member
* GARTER CATCHERS- selected friends or audience members
* PHOTOGRAPHER - Cindy Clark (as "Louise", August 27)

PLOT: An already stressful wedding is disrupted by foul play in this dinner theater comedy, a murder mystery.

HISTORY: At the end of a June 9 rehearsal with Market Street Irregulars for "The Last Dance of Dr. Disco", co-star Debbie Troia asked me if I'd like to be in "Marriage Can Be Murder", another MSI show being performed that summer. With her co-star/husband going out of town during many of the performances, Debbie (cast member and director of the show) needed someone to take over one of the roles. I accepted the role, making "Marriage" my fourth play of 2005, creating a total of four roles that I'd managed to land within the first six months of that year.
I was originally asked to play the Groom, which would have had me filling Jeff's role, and Jeff filling Mark's Alfonso role. But to simplify the alternate-casting situation, I was asked to play the much larger (lead!) role of Alfonso, with Jeff keeping the Groom part.
My co-stars had been performing the show at various venues (starting with Sorge's Restaurant in Corning) since October 2004, totalling 14 shows together by the time I did my first performance with the ensemble.
June and July 2005 proved to be extremely busy thanks to numerous evening and weekend shoots and edits required by my TV station job, around which rehearsals for "Marriage" and "Dr. Disco" would have to be scheduled. Despite this, I managed to fully memorize my lines, blocking, and mannerisms four days before my first appearance with the cast. (A Fox-TV affiliate conference landed me some much-needed hotel-room private time to go over my lines).
Due to overbooking, my first show on Captain Bill's boat had to be done without our keyboardist, but otherwise went without a hitch. The second show was pretty chaotic (noisy boat, rocky waves, etc), but we got through it. Due to a last-minute scheduling conflict with Lynne's job, the third boat show was cancelled.
Two more shows were scheduled, in October, at the National Soaring Museum. The museum enlisted WYDC to create a TV spot, which I edited using clips from tapes of two previous shows (one with Mark, one with me). The museum performances ended the play's year-long run (18 shows, 4 with me) on a high note. However, this would not be the end of the show's run, and by the end of 2005, a nineteenth performance was already being planned....

PHOTOS:
* none yet