Whodunnit?

While many in the area are preparing for the NFL Draft this week, performers with Evergreen Theater have been hard at work preparing for their upcoming show — The Vultures, written by Mark A. Ridge and directed by Michael Ajango.

“It’s a murder mystery and comedy mashed together into one show, so you get a little bit of everything,” Ajango said. “The basic premise is that the multi-millionaire Simon West hated all of his living relatives when he was dying, so he decided to put off the reading of his will for 20 years from the date and hour of his death, Whoever the surviving relatives were 20 years later would have the reading of the will and the heir to his fortune would be revealed… They meet at midnight to have the will read on Sept. 27, because he died on Sept. 27 20 years ago, and the will is read and the heir is revealed, but there’s the whole play that goes along with that — there’s a murder and nobody knows who did it and there’s a lot of comedy. And by the end of the play, the murderer will be revealed and we will all go home happy.”

With a mix of humor and suspense, Ajango said there’s truly something in the show for everybody — both those in the audience and those in the cast.

“There’s really not one person that’s the lead,” he said. “Everybody has a really good part and they all enter into the discussion. It’s pretty fast-paced and there’s a little bit of everything in terms of comedy and a little bit of everything in terms of drama. Calling it a haunted house might be overstepping a little bit, but certainly a dark and foreboding house in the middle of a rainstorm with lightning and thunder and all the good stuff that goes along with that.”

Along with getting to know the intricacies of a new show, Ajango said the production process has also involved a lot of getting to know each other among the cast and crew, many of whom have not worked together on a show before.

“Working with a new set of actors and crew always creates a lot of excitement,” Ajango said. “Of the crew and of the actors that we have, I think off the top of my head I have directed only one of them prior to this and been in a show with two of them, but everybody else is basically new. So when you get to do a production like this, you get to make new friends. You get to see new actors and you get to learn what they bring to the table in terms of their skill set. That’s always the exciting part. And as far as the crew is concerned, the assistant director, Brent Brayko, and I have done a few shows together prior to this so we know each other very well, but basically the rest of the crew are people I have not worked with before.”

Evergreen Theater’s production of The Vultures will feature performances April 30-May 4 at the Cedar Creek Event Center.

More information about the show and tickets can be found at evergreentheater.org.