Door County's Rogue Theater has murder over dinner, dramas and comedies in its 2024 season

STURGEON BAY - It's another season of audience-participation dinner mysteries, dramas and feel-good comedies in 2024 for Rogue Theater, the Door County-based community theater company that announced the six shows it is producing for the coming year.

Opening the season is one of the company's staples, a dinner theater murder mystery where audience members try to solve, or guess, who is the murderer at the end. Rogue performs these shows over weekends in local restaurants to bring them some business during their offseasons.

This year’s production is "Sam Club, Private Eye, in The Case of the Malted Falcon," Written by Marylou Ambrose and Tony Schwartz, this spoof of the iconic Humphrey Bogart film noir "The Maltese Falcon" has private detective Sam Club guarding a priceless, edible chocolate sculpture of a falcon that, under his watch, gets stolen en route to the Gallery of Amazing Art in New York.

The list of suspects includes Sam’s secretary, the chocoholic Velma Vavoomsky, TV chef Rachael Raven, bird activist Abigail Nightingale, and many others. At the end of the play, someone is ruthlessly murdered, and that's when the audience goes to work to figure out whodunnit.

The show will run from mid-March to mid-April at several Door County establishments, with exact dates and locations to be determined.

The remainder of the season's productions will take place in Rogue's new DC Arts Center in Sturgeon Bay, with shows held from mid-June into the December holiday season.

Next up is the timeless classic "On Golden Pond," playwright Ernest Thompson's story of long-married elderly couple Ethel and Norman Thayer and their annual vacation to their summer home being upended by the teenage grandson left in their care by their daughter and son-in-law, who are off to Europe.

The stage production won the 1979 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play and a 2005 revivial starring James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams won the Tony Award for Best Revival. But it's best known for the 1981 movie, adapted for the screen by Thompson, that won Best Actor and Actress Oscars for Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn as well as the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay.

"On Golden Pond" is scheduled to run June 13 to 16, 20 to 23 and 27 to 30.

Over several weekends in August, Rogue will present the dramatic comedy "Heroes" by French playwright Gerald Sibleyras, translated into English and adapted in 2005 by Tom Stoppard. Set in a nursing home for disabled veterans outside Paris in the 1950s, the play has three vets of World War I plot their escape

Over several weekends in August, Rogue will present the dramatic comedy "Heroes" by French playwright Gerald Sibleyras, translated into English and adapted in 2005 by Tom Stoppard. Set in a nursing home for disabled veterans outside Paris in the 1950s, the play has three vets of World War I plot their escape – if not to Indochina, then at least as far as the poplar trees on the hill

Over several weekends in August, Rogue will present the dramatic comedy "Heroes" by French playwright Gerald Sibleyras, translated into English and adapted in 2005 by Tom Stoppard. Set in a nursing home for disabled veterans outside Paris in the 1950s, the play has three vets of World War I plot their escape – if not to Indochina, then at least as far as the poplar trees on the hill – despite their war wounds, agoraphobia and ages.

Next for Rogue is "Clue: On Stage," an adaptation of the 1985 movie inspired by the classic murder-mystery board game. This farce-meets-mystery show has six mysterious guests assemble for an unusual dinner party at a remote mansion, where murder and blackmail are on the menu. It is planned to run for several weekends in September.

October brings shock and drama to the stage with "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson novella. The Gothic tale explores the interplay of good and evil within humans as Henry Jekyll experiments with exotic chemicals to bring up his bad side in Hyde, with the two personalities in one body battling each other in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.

For the holiday season, Rogue will present "Hallelujah Girls," a comedy meant to remind audiences of the importance of good friends and not taking life so seriously that we forget to laugh and love. Written by Jamie Wooten, Jessie Jones and Nicholas Hope, it sees a feisty group of Southern women decide that life is indeed short after the death of a friend and vow to change their lives and achieve their dreams. This show is planned for several December weekends.

Except for "The Case of the Malted Falcon," all Rogue Theater shows will take place at the DC Arts Center, 917 N. 14th Ave. Sturgeon Bay. Auditions for the summer and fall shows are being held Jan. 24 and 27. The center, which opened last August under the direction of Rogue co-artistic directors Stuart Champeau and Lola De Villers, also hosts youth programs, camps and classes offered by Rogue, and other arts groups are invited to put on shows, concerts or exhibits when the theater space is dark.

For play schedules and prices or more information, call 920-818-0816, visit roguetheater.org or email 1roguetheater@gmail.com.

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@doorcountyadvocate.com.

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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Murder, drama, comedy: Door County's Rogue Theater announces its 2024 season