BY RAEGAN NEUFELD
Friday is the opening night for Hays Community Theatre’s dinner theatre performance of ‘Nobody Kills Sherlock,’ a play written by local author Kathleen Holen.
A comedy/murder mystery, the play takes place at the annual Wheaton Book Club award banquet and follows the events of the evening, which include two authors making their rivalry public, a surprise guest speaker, and may or may not end with a murder. Director Amy Bergman described the show as super fun and entertaining.
“To be able to be deeply involved and practically have memorized the whole thing myself, and still laugh, still get the innuendos and the actual overt comic theatre of it all, speaks to the quality of the work,” she said.
HCT was able to get the performing rights to ‘Nobody Kills Sherlock’ in a somewhat unordinary way, starting in April when Holen contacted Bergman for help with organizing a read through of the play. Not only were the participants able to give feedback, Holen then also ‘donated’ her play to the theatre so they could perform it for free.
“Normally, there’s a charge to purchase a play,” Bergman said. “Any of these productions that we’re putting on, we purchase the rights to do the play. She offered to do that for free for us, and we were, of course, thrilled.”
Bergman also mentioned the collaboration between her and Holen as the production has been developed. For instance, it was Holen’s idea to make it a dinner theatre show.
“She worked with us to develop and she answered all these questions I had as far as making sure I was understanding the tone of the play and such,” she said. “I really want to honor her work and, of course make a good show. She’s been very open with that. It’s been really wonderful to work with her. The fact that I’m a friend with her is really nice, but as a true director and author relationship, she really goes over and above.”
Auditions took place at the very beginning of the year and rehearsals started on Jan. 25, meaning the cast has been working together for just a month. Bergman praised her cast and crew for their hard work.
“That’s a lot of memorization in a short period of time, so that means they’re working on their own on the days we don’t have practice,” she said. “These are people that all work regular, 40 hours a week jobs, and then we do this during our evenings and weekends as our hobby.”
Tickets for the show can be bought online on the HCT website. The doors open at 6:15 p.m. and the show starts at 7:00 p.m. both Friday and Saturday.