Stuff 4 Church Mystery Dinner Theater Drama Schedule

DINNER THEATER DRAMA SCHEDULE

Typical Schedule for Presenting the Dinner Theaters

With a mystery dinner theater, the time of the actual drama is intentionally kept to about 45 minutes, not counting the conclusion scene. A suggested time frame is:

6:30 - 7:00	Welcome guests. Characters mingle with the crowd. Allow guests to get drinks, snack on appetizers, and play games. Guests can also read through the character descriptions at this time.
7:00 - 7:15	The host for the evening thanks everyone for coming and briefly explains how the evening will progress. Explain that people may want to turn their chairs for optimum viewing. Also, taking notes is recommended! The cast will perform Scene I.
7:15 - 8:00	Serve the meal!! Characters should help with the serving and continue to mingle with the guests.
8:00 - 8:30	Again, the host should encourage the audience to turn their attention toward the drama. Present the main portion of the drama where a crime takes place.
8:30 - 8:45	The host should explain the process of questioning the suspects and completing the ballots. Serve dessert. As tables eat, they should brainstorm questions to ask the suspects.
8:45 - 9:00	The audience will interrogate the suspects. (Read more.) Then, each guest will complete his/her own ballot to tell their solution for the crime. All ballots are collected.
9:00 - 9:15	Present the final scene and solve the mystery. As the scene is presented, a few people should go through the ballots to select all the winners who guessed correctly. Also, select those who are clueless*.
9:15 - 9:25	Share about having a relationship with Christ** and/or your church.
9:25 - 9:40	Draw for door prize. Present the award to the Sleuth of the Night*** and the Clueless Award.

*Clueless Award -- We find it fun to present this award at every dinner theater. Tell the guests ahead of time that they could win the "Clueless Award"! It goes to the person who is the furthest from guessing the correct suspect and/or reason for the crime. There are some characters in the audience who will enjoy having fun with this one! One example at our last dinner theater a gentleman - whose wife had been selected as a volunteer - wrote that his wife committed the murder. She did it with her killer eyes. The way he knew was that she had used them on him before!! Our prize was a compass to help him find his way!

**Bonus -- The Greatest Mystery in History handout comes with every script so the gospel can easily be shared with the crowd. You can choose to share verbally, place the handout on the tables, and/or pass them out as people leave.

***Winners -- If you have more than one winner, then announce all the winners. Select a number between 1 and 100 and allow them to pick numbers to find a grand winner who receives the prize. If there are too many winners (rare), then simply draw the grand winner from the pile.

For a FREE preview of any of the scripts -- Send an email to Nancy: with your name and church name along with the name of the script you would like to preview! You will receive three PDF documents: A portion of the script for you to understand the flow, a list of characters for you to determine if you have the right people to fill the cast, and a suggested schedule.

TO ORDER: To order a Mystery Dinner Drama Script go to Theater 4 Church. You will get an email invoice to pay with a credit card on PayPal or if you prefer - call with your credit card information. Then, after payment is received, you will receive the script as a PDF Document by email. PLUS lots of extras to help you have the best event possible!

Every script includes: logos, example playbill, table game for audience, set up suggestions, ballots, example ad poster, character descriptions, example handouts for invites, Greatest Mystery Handout,. . .

* Because I am fighting spam - emails no longer link. You will need to personally type the email address.