After a mysterious murder occurs at The Porterhouse, those meddling kids and their talking dog Scooby-Doo will be on the case in the first Murder and Macabre Mystery Dinner Theater show since the pandemic started.
"Murder & Mischief with the Bag Ghost," a "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" inspired show, will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and is limited to those 21 and older.
Lynn Janaskie, who will play Velma, the "brains" of the group, described the show as "an interactive who-done-it, so all of the guests, we might talk straight to them or get them up and have them do stuff. It's a lot of fun. It's kind of different than most plays."
"We will give people like maybe a bit part, and they don't tell anybody, and they stand up in the middle of the play ... it usually kind of surprises their spouse or partner," she said.
Janaskie noted that during the show "we actually walk around the tables as we're doing our parts, so we could come right up to you and just ask you if you agree with us, talking to you like you are part of our scene."
In the past, the theater has held shows based on popular shows such as "The Addams Family," "The Brady Bunch" and "Gilligan's Island."
"Our son, in Virginia ... (who is) 37 ... he knows that we do these, and he's been to one of them, and he's the one who suggested we do 'Scooby-Doo,' and I've been amazed at how many people just love 'Scooby-Doo,'" she said.
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Joining Lynn Janaskie in the play are her husband, Frank Janaskie, as Scooby-Doo, her sister, T.J. Griffith, as Daphne, Steve Freeman as Fred and Paul Lowe as Shaggy.
This is the 14th year of the Murder and Macabre Mystery Dinner Theater. They normally hold two shows a year with one on Valentine's Day and one on Halloween, but due to the pandemic, they were unable to do their normal schedule.
"We don't normally do Memorial Day, but we thought, you know, this might be a good way to kick off summer," Lynn Janaskie said.
The group started rehearsing for this show around six weeks ago. She said all of their shows feature a cast of five actors, "except for dead bodies."
The group said they are excited to get back to work. Griffith, who joined five years ago, said acting is nerve-wracking "at the beginning, but when it's all over, you're just, 'Wow, we were actors,'" she said.
The show is $50 per person, which includes catering from The Porterhouse. Janaskie said the restaurant will serve a buffet from 6 to 7 p.m., and the play will run from 7 to around 9 p.m.
Guests are encouraged to wear tie-dyed clothes and adopt "the hippie look."
"When 'Scooby-Doo' first aired was around 1969, first cartoon run between it and 1972, so you've got the end of the '60s, beginning part of the '70s," Frank Janaskie said.
"And everybody loves dressing like a hippie," Lynn said.
In October, the group will return to their regular schedule. They are not ready to announce what the theme of the October show will be, "but somebody's guaranteed to die," Frank Janaskie said.
