A Play That Could Go Wrong, the story of an not-ready-for-prime-time drama society’s disastrous murder mystery, makes its Temple debut Friday night at 7:30 p.m. The show is a hilarious — and a bit confusing — performance that lives up to its name. David Stone photo
DAVID STONE | OUR TOWN TEMPLE
The Play That Goes Wrong gets off track in a hurry. In fact, multiple disasters strike even before the curtain goes up on the play-within-a-play, Murder at Haversham Manor. Confused? That’s OK. Just sit back and enjoy the Temple Civic Theatre’s latest production.
The Play That Goes Wrong opens Friday night at 7:30. Tickets are $20 for adults and $14 for students, and can be purchased at templecivictheatre.com. The show continues Saturday and Sunday, June 3 and 4, and wraps up next week with four performances, June 8-11. Sunday performances are at 2:30 p.m.
The show centers around the cast and crew of Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society as they stage a 1920’s murder mystery. The murder takes place at the beginning of the show, right after some odd milling about by The Play That Goes Wrong crew members who actually are part of the cast.
The murder victim is stretched out on a couch, and at times the actor seems a bit restless — yes, the body moves just a tad. Maybe more than a tad.
Props disappear, actors go missing and the set begins to crumble. Yep, this play is going wrong.
“I saw this play in New York when it opened in 2017,” said Natasha Tolleson, TCT’s artistic director. “It’s a British play, and it’s every theater person’s worst nightmare. Sure enough, everything can go wrong, and it does.”
“I knew this would make great community theater and Temple would like it,” she said. “It’s a comedy that will appeal to a lot of people.”
“It’s also quite a challenge — the set is a monster,” Tolleson said. “A lot of things happen, and they have to happen safely.”
Stage manager Prescott Hershey agreed that the show has been a challenge for actors and crew.
“The set is about 70 percent tech,” he said. “And about 30 percent making sure you don’t get hurt by the tech. We have pieces that have to function, then go wrong. Walls fall, objects fall and even a large platform falls apart. We have to rehearse very carefully to make sure things go wrong like they are supposed to.”
Dan Becker, an actor who has been in TCT productions since Oliver in 2012, plays a man named Robert who is playing a character named Thomas in the murder mystery.
“There’s a lot to go wrong in A Play That Goes Wrong,” Becker said. “There’s the technical stuff, then there’s the challenge of playing two characters. You have to remember what role you are playing and try to stay in character.”
Darren Walker, whose first acting role was Santa Claus in the second grade, called A Play That Goes Wrong “a very funny show. People are being serious in the murder mystery, and they are so bad at it. This is a show unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”
Walker portrays Perkins, a butler, in the murder mystery.
Calvin Eshbaugh, an ophthalmologist at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center, portrays a backstage crew member whose job is to run the lights.
“He’s a bit of a slacker and doesn’t care a whole lot,” Eshbaugh said. “He makes noises and plays with the lights, and at one point he goes on stage to fix things that have gone wrong.”
Eshbaugh is one of several fresh faces in A Play That Goes Wrong.
“This is only my second performance,” he said. “My first show was in December — Elf. I played Mr. Greenway. Acting is a lot of fun, but more effort and hours than you might realize. But it’s great to be part of a team, and I like the strong leadership Natasha brings.”
The show features David Corkill as Chris Bean/Inspector Carter; Talon Hayes as Jonathan Harris/Charles Haversham; Dan Becker as Robert Grove/Thomas Colleymoore; Darren Roy Walker as Dennis Tyde/Perkins; Marnie Abrahams as Sandra Wilkinson/Florence Colleymoore; Spencer Tolleson as Max Bennett/Cecil Haversham/Arthur the Gardner; Abdallah Shuiab as Trevor Watson; Debbie Cable Brown as Annie Twilloil; and Calvin Eshbaugh, Anita Gibson, Richard Hoelscher and Kim Torres as Cornley Drama Society stage crew.
The biggest question about A Play That Goes Wrong is whether any of the cast and crew will still be standing — or even conscious — by the final curtain.