Above: The wonderful cast of The Mother of the Year Murders at the Belvidere Manor February 10, 2018
Below…a brief excerpt from my upcoming book…Murder Show
In the earliest evolution of my murder mystery journey, I found I was developing scenarios around various holidays. The Christmas Carol Murders, The Irish Eyes Murders and the Schoolhouse Masquerade Murders were titles developed around Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day and Halloween, respectively. I don’t think it was particularly my intention to pair scripts to holidays in this way. But the performance venue believed it was in the overall best interest of the project that this be the case. I also found this a valid point when I began licensing my scripts for performances through my website. Clearly, the Christmas and St. Patrick’s shows were the most popular requests.
So, when the folks at The Riverton Hotel and Restaurant expressed an interest in doing a show revolving around Mother’s Day, I came up with the notion of The Mother of the Year Murders. My thought was to center the action around a kind of a pageant that would crown the mother-of-the-year. I decided to go way over the top with wacky characters , who would be somewhat familiar to the audience members. June Cleavage and her son Otter were based on the classic ‘60’s tv show, Leave It To Beaver. Livia Contralto and her son Teeny reminded us of The Sopranos. And of course Hilary, Willy and Chesty Smintton, were pulled from the early aught headlines of the time.
About that, I must admit to the fact that I voted for Bill Clinton….twice. I believe he was a good President. And perhaps history will judge him to be a great President. But…and it’s a huge but…his personal antics while in the White House became the mother-lode of literary parody, satire and caricature for a decade. Although Clinton’s behavior was, I’m sure, devastating to his wife and daughter, it was comedy gold and totally complimentary to my Mother of the Year Murders concept. I recently produced Mother for the first time in quite a long while. The difference in audience reaction from earlier productions was amazing. Back in the day, the Hilary character yielded its share of laughs, but at the same time benefited from a good deal of audience sympathy. But in 2018, as our national polarization was rising to new heights, the character was treated with much disdain. I was surprised. It’s only a play people! I felt badly for the actress playing the role. But she was a trooper and played it perfectly. Good job, Colleen.
billbenbarker 