Alamo City Actors Guild presents comedy whodunit

(Nov. 17, 2004)--The Alamo City Actors Guild, a UTSA student organization, presents the comedic, murder mystery, "The Butler Did It," at the University Center Retama Auditorium (2.02.02), 1604 Campus, at 7 p.m. Nov. 17-19 and 1 p.m. Nov. 20.

Admission is $5, $3 for students with UTSACard. Tickets are available at the door or at the University Center information desk.

The play by Walter Marks and Peter Marks takes place in a theater where a writer-director is rehearsing his new play, a classic whodunit in which all the characters are named Butler. The director hopes to use the new production to regain the success that has eluded him in recent seasons.

Desperately eager to stimulate his cast to their best efforts, he deliberately withholds the final scene of the play. The director's patience is worn thin by the petty jealousies and romantic rivalries which detract from the actors' concentration. To spur them on, he stages the murder of one of the actresses, after which the plot begins to twist and turn. Soon actors and audience alike lose track of what is real and what is make-believe -- until a surprise ending sets matters straight in a bizarre and ironic way.

The New York Post described the play as a "deft and diabolically clever thriller [that] mingles laughter and chills as it skillfully unwinds its twisted tale of murder and mayhem..." The New York Daily News said it is "a genuinely amusing burlesque of those good old '30s movie thrillers in which the killer is unmasked in the final moments."

For more information, visit the Alamo City Actors Guild Web site.

--Tim Brownlee