By A psychic, an alleged detective and a poet were at the scene of the crime for a Murder Mystery Dinner hosted by ASI.
The event took place the night of Oct. 22 in the University Student Union Ballrooms as students followed a trail of clues left behind, uncovering the “murder” of Lucky Larry Lawrence, a poet who was meant to perform for the attendees.
Students were provided with dinner and refreshments catered by Moonlight Mocktails, who served up an assortment of spooky beverages free of charge.
Drinks were being made the whole night and dinner quickly ran out as the audience was nearly at capacity for the festive evening.
“This event was really successful. We’ve only had to turn away 1 or 2 people, but the goal was to fill up all the seats and it’s a little over 100 people here who are having fun,” ASI employee Suhani Joshi said.
The Murder Mystery show was put on by Sharpo Entertainment Productions, who had stage actors constantly interacting with the audience.
Detective Lieutenant Charles calls on audience member to read out a riddle at the Murder Mystery Dinner on Oct. 22. Some students even had clues hidden under their seats that pushed the story forward. Photo credit: Jazmyn De Jesus
“This [event] feels a little more engaging and way more fun,” Audrey Martinez said, who compared the Murder Mystery to her last Beach Pride event experience. “It’s perfect that it’s Halloween time too, so me and my friend were like ‘Why not?’, and we’re having a good time.”
Other characters appearing in the story were a phony psychic named Presto Umar, Detective Lieutenant Charles and his assistant, Meadow.
They used audience participation to help unravel the story of how Lawrence mysteriously wound up strangled to death in the entryway of the USU Ballroom, interrupting Presto’s seance demonstration.
Students were entranced by Presto, the actor playing the soon-to-be-deceased, as he barged in choking and screaming, kicking off the whodunnit portion of the evening.
Students rushed to the entryway to take a selfie with the deceased as “evidence” for Detective Lieutenant Charles, who made attendees laugh throughout the whole mystery due to the constant cracking of jokes and gags with his castmates.
“We’ve become known for this at Sharpo, and it’s nice that even students here can have fun with a performance like this and make it memorable,” Eric Sharp, founder of Sharpo Entertainment Productions, said.
Sharp not only starred in last night’s performance as the detective, but he also wrote the script and planned out the audience participation for the Murder Mystery.
“[Sharpo] was really easy to work with and I’m just excited to see how people are going to enjoy it,” Ileana Chavez, ASI event coordinator, said.
By the end of the night, it was clear that students were on the edge of their seats to solve the mystery, shouting out at the actors and even putting on performing themselves to get to the bottom of it.
Accusations were thrown and friends jokingly pointed at each other to blame, but it ended up being the actors interrogating the audience that revealed who killed Lucky Larry Lawrence.
The prime suspect was an accounting student named Faith who, according to the script, was tied to the Illuminati and led Lucky to his demise that night.
The shock died down as the night ended and students who were brought together by solving the mystery together mingled outside of the USU.
For future ASI events, look out for more info on their website or Instagram.
