Whodunnit?
That’s what Sleuths Mystery Dinner Shows has been asking audiences for 35 years now. It started as a mom-and-pop dinner show shop with one room in 1990 and grew into a three-theatre institution offering stages full of “murder, mystery and mayhem” in Orlando’s International Drive entertainment district.
Assistant Director James Honey has been an actor at Sleuths from the beginning. He explained the unique murder mystery/comedy show formula that has kept patrons coming back for 35 years, starting with noting that the show begins the moment you enter, with a character seating you and others bringing hors d'oeuvres, setting the tone.
“So your salad is also a pre-show, basically,” he joked. “And then the formal show begins. It's about a 45-minute mystery, and then somebody dies, and then you eat dinner!”
But it’s far from over, explained Honey. A detective character arrives and walks the audience through the “interrogation” portion of the show, when each table has a chance to ask questions to try to determine who the murderer might be. This is the improvisation part of the show, in which the actors have to be ready for anything the audience members might ask…anything at all.
“I personally have fielded the question ‘boxers or briefs’ at least 100 times!” laughed Honey.
After dessert, the murderer is revealed, and audience members who figured out the mystery get recognized.
“It was immersive before ‘immersive’ was a buzzword,” Honey said.
Celebrating 35 years on International Drive is objectively no easy feat, but if you ask anyone involved in Sleuths, they’ll tell you it’s no mystery to them why it’s lasted so long.
The actors, for example, credit the “mayhem” part of Sleuths’ “murder, mystery and mayhem” tagline (with tongue firmly in cheek). On a recent night, cast members performing in one of Sleuths’ dozen-or-so shows weighed in on what’s special about Sleuths.
They give so much power to the actors,” said actor David Almeida. “We are encouraged to improvise. We're encouraged to add jokes and find things that improve the scripts, so that when we're performing, we all feel a deep sense of ownership of the product that Sleuths is putting out. It's really the best place to work. I have never worked in a place that has given me so much creative freedom.” In fact, Almeida added, he is the playwright for one of Sleuths’ shows, called “Falling Pines.”
“I think what makes Sleuths so special is that I get to perform a different role here almost every night,” says co-star Courtney Cunningham. “I play 14 different roles, so every time that I come in, it's something new. It's something exciting.”
“Also, we have really great key lime pie!” she added.
Sleuths is a remarkably different place to work than anything I've ever done,” said fellow actor Kenra Musselle. “It's unique. I work with different people all the time. You never know who you're going to work with. We have a script, but we get to do something with that and make the characters our own, and that means so much. It's just great to be part of this family.”
The “family” sentiment is something you’ll hear from Sleuths cast and crew, past and present. Laurel Clark was show director for more than 20 years. “I think family is the overarching theme, and it's what makes us all have such loving memories of the place and of each other,” she said. Married couple Gary and Sandy Redmond are the owners and founders of Sleuths, Gary the original head writer, and if you head down the hall from the theaters to the office, you’ll find Sandy’s daughter Donna Ernbro in charge. It’s a family business, Clark said, and it feels like one, in all the right ways.
As for Ernbro, she gives credit for Sleuths’ long life to the patrons.
“Because we hear nightly, ‘Oh, I've been coming here since I was in school as a little kid, and now I wanted my kids to experience it,’” she said. “And when you hear that, it really tugs at your heart, you know. Or people have come back…after COVID, who said, ‘We're so glad you came back, we were so worried you weren't going to make it,’ and that the fact that people thought of that is pretty amazing.”
