Audience decides 'whodunnit' and how in comic murder mystery ‘Shear Madness’ at FST

In some ways, Bruce Jordan is just like many of the audiences who return again and again to his record-breaking hit comedy “Shear Madness.”

He is now directing the comedy for at least the 40th time in its return to Florida Studio Theatre, where it opens the 2023 summer season. The Sarasota theater first produced the show in 2010 and brought it back the following year because of its popularity.

Jordan and Marilyn Abrams created a sensation when they adapted a German play by Paul Portner called “Scherenschnitt.” It was a serious play set in a beauty salon that required audience participation. They saw it as the basis for something funnier.

Arts Newsletter: Sign up to receive the latest news on the Sarasota area arts scene every Monday

A summer of laughs: ‘Shear Madness’ returns to FST in a comedy-focused summer season

Comedy on the spot: Sarasota Improv Festival brings laughs back to FST after four-year pandemic break

“Marilyn and I went to Dusseldorf to see “Scherenschnitt” and it was very austere, very Germanic. But as soon as the audience got involved there was laughter because of the disinformation people were giving to the police,” Jordan said in a recent Zoom interview.

Their version, “Shear Madness,” first opened in Boston in 1980 and ran for 40 years until the pandemic forced theaters to shut down. It has been running since 1987 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with more than 13,000 performances. Jordan stays busy directing the show around the country, often with actors who have done different versions of the show.

People return because the show is at least slightly different every night, based on what audience members tell a detective trying to solve a murder that occurred in an apartment upstairs from a beauty salon. But it’s also different for Jordan, because he and the actors adapt the script for each city, and the times. They may use an earlier Sarasota script as a reference point, but places and people mentioned will change, sometimes within the run of a production.

Local theater staff and the stage manager help with references.

He said it never gets boring working on new productions because of the changes and the way audiences react.

“The thing I love the most is to sit backstage and peek out and watch the audience become addicted to the fun. That gives me the most pleasure. Carol Channing used to say that the wonderful thing about ‘Hello, Dolly!’ is that the people all feel better when they come out than when they went in. At this particular time, people need some comedy, to get together and in the same room and laugh at the same things.”

Jordan has returned frequently to Florida Studio Theatre to direct other shows. Producing Artistic Director Richard Hopkins describes Jordan as “one of the greatest comedy directors living in the world. He knows how to get every nuance out of a comedy scene. He’s done this show for 30 or 40 years and the perfection that comes with that - he knows every angle of it.”

Last year, he staged “The Play That Goes Wrong,” about a company of community theater actors facing a myriad of problems, from actors getting injured to the set falling apart. In past years, he has staged “Spamalot,” “The Underpants,” “Murder for Two” and “The Perfect Wedding” at the Sarasota theater.

The cast includes several people returning from past productions, including Jordan Ahnquist as Tony Whitcomb, the flamboyant beauty salon owner who is also a musical theater fan; Gil Brady as detective Nick O’Brien; and Lisa McMillan, who reprises her role as Mrs. Shubert, a socialite who frequents the salon for the services of stylist Barbara DeMarco, played by Gina Milo. The cast also includes Shaun Memmel as customer Mikey Thomas and Luis E. Rivera as Eddie, an antiques dealer.

A future home for community theater?: Players Centre may get to turn Payne Park auditorium into a theater

Some dreams are possible: A glorious ‘Man of La Mancha’ closes Asolo Rep season

Tree Fort Productions Projects: Actress and teacher Katherine Tanner launches new theater company in Sarasota

Jordan said some actors can get tired of the show quickly. But there are others who “want to show off their expertise by creating new things and trying them out. There’s not much improv anymore on stage. Most of the improv is in the dressing room where they’ll try things out.”

Anquist and Brady are among those who “are always looking for the next thing and the next corner. I played the show myself for the first five years and I always went out there thinking this is going to be so much fun. You didn’t know what was coming and how the joke you worked on in the dressing room would go over.”

He said the show often lasts so long in different cities because audiences like “their power in it. An actress in Chicago said to me once that other shows have improv, or whodunnits or comedy. The thing about this show is that we listen to what the other person says and we respond to it. We make the audience input important to the outcome of the show. They do determine how the show ends every night.”

And they don’t always come to the same conclusion.

“In the long long long run, there is a character who gets voted more than the others,” Jordan said, adding that in a recent run at the Straz Center in Tampa “the first 15 nights, it was a different character than the one that usually gets voted. A lot of that has to do with how the characters land their laughs. The more the audience likes them, the more they don’t pay attention to the evidence and just vote for whether they like you or don’t.”

There are no set rules for audience members who will be drawn into the action to provide clues and point out evidence to the detective.

“Our motto is always let the audience win. If they are funnier than we are, let them go. Once that door opens when they can help out, at first it comes in a trickle and then it’s a flood,” Jordan said.

“Shear Madness” has kept Jordan busy and ha been profitable for him and Abrams. And the original playwright never complained.

“I got a lovely note from him,” Jordan said. “And we send him a check every week, so he’s really happy.”

‘Shear Madness’

Adapted by Marilyn Abrams and Bruce Jordan from a play by Paul Portner. Directed by Bruce Jordan. Runs May 31-June 25. (with extensions possible) at Florida Studio Theatre’s Gompertz Theatre, 1265 First St., Sarasota. Tickets are $29-$49. 941-366-9000; floridastudiotheatre.org

Follow Jay Handelman on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Contact him at jay.handelman@heraldtribune.com. And please support local journalism by subscribing to the Herald-Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Audience members pick a killer in comical mystery ‘Shear Madness’