Let It Bleed: Rolling Stones Musical Murder Mystery
Let It Bleed: Rolling Stones Musical Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre on tap at Grand River Raceway
ELORA, ON — The year is 1978. The setting is Bearsville Studios, near the village of Woodstock, New York. The Rolling Stones are rehearsing in preparation for a world tour to support their latest album Some Girls. The audience is comprised of groupies, roadies, dealers, management, journalists, photographers, dressers, personal assistants, and various other hangers-on.
And while the audience is actually 128 guests of Grand River Raceway seeking a night of comedy and live music in an all-original whodunit, this highly fictionalized account of a real-life rehearsal offers plenty of factual delights.
Let it Bleed is Grand River Raceway’s latest Musical Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre production. These all-original shows are written and performed exclusively for Grand River Raceway by Tim Clarke Productions of Guelph.
Now in its fourth year, the track’s Musical Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre has produced 56 shows for more than 6,000 guests. In 2018, the track doubled its playbill to offer 26 shows after all of the previous year’s productions were sell-outs.
Tim Clarke as Elvis in a previous Musical Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre production.
The music is live and the shows are scripted with lovingly researched details and nuances. Clarke digs deep into the rollercoaster dynamics of the Rolling Stones for this show and into the equally fascinating turmoil of bands in past productions such as Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles and The Rat Pack, to name a few.
He researches the performers’ lives and interactions through biographies, films and news accounts from the era. His precise goal is to thread these nuggets of reality into a hilarious fictional narrative that always includes a murder and several favourite songs performed by his talented crew of musical actors.
The Rolling Stones show offers six hit songs and a hysterical peek at the tumultuous relationships and crazy lifestyle of the band’s members. These include Richards’ real-life arrest in Toronto, and several near-death experiences via electrocution on stage, smoking rat poison in Switzerland and burning down his villa in France.
The audience experience is just as original as the Musical Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre format itself. Fun, interactive contests mark the start and end of the evening. The characters visit each table to plead their innocence in the ghastly crime as guests vote by secret ballot (in an effort to win a prize). And where else can theatre-goers actually take selfies on-stage with the corpse of the murder victim during dessert?
Let It Bleed is the third of six all-original Musical Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre productions offered at Grand River Raceway in 2018. It runs April 20, 21, 27 and 28. Tickets are $57 and include a homemade three-course meal.
Future productions include an encore showing of The Wizard Of Oz: A Munchkin Murder Mystery in September; The 27 Club: A Halloween Murder Mystery (with Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse) in October; and The Beach Boys: A Christmas Murder Mystery in November/December.
• Complete information and online ticket sales
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FFI:
Kelly Spencer
Mgr. Marketing & Communications
Grand River Raceway
519-846-5455 ext. 238
kspencer@grandriverraceway.com