Plant City residents will soon get to do some detective work, old west style, thanks to this year’s Mystery Dinner Theatre play.
A lively group of locals will perform “Wrangle at Red Mountain Ranch,” written by Nancy Bond, on Aug. 16 at the Trinkle Center at Hillsborough Community College. This year’s show is interesting as sort of a play within a play: people find themselves at a real dude ranch out west and, seeking to hash out their differences, they reenact the lives of cowboys from the old, wild west. But just when things seem to be going well, director Gail Lyons said, “several scalawags are caught lying like a rug. One pilgrim retaliates by taking out the worst scoundrel of all.” It’s up to you, the dinner guests, to solve this classic case of “Whodunnit?”
“Getting into character is fun, besides acting out on Facebook,” Michelle Valdes said. “This is the real thing. We’re doing it for real. From here, I think I’m gonna go to Broadway.”
The typical Mystery Dinner Theatre format is simple: the first half of the play is acted out, then guests eat dinner and make their predictions for the murderer and their weapon before the intermission ends and the rest of the play is performed. Audience participation goes beyond that, though: guests are generally asked to come dressed in theme-appropriate attire, so the Friends of the Library board felt that was a part of “Wrangle at Red Mountain Ranch” residents could easily get into.
“We had a selection of four plays we could do and chose this because it’s very interactive with the audience and they liked the plot,” Lyons said. “It felt like it fit the Plant City community better than the others… everybody has blue jeans, cowboy hats and can come in country-western attire.”
This year’s cast members include Jon Poppell, Mike Floyd, Jeremy Rhoades, John Belcher, Steve Otto, Rob McClellan, Carmen Brownlee, Shanna Kennedy, Sharon Moody, Valdes and Billy Herold. Lyons is directing, Amy Nizamoff is producing and George Domedion is the production manager. The cast has been rehearsing since early July, typically at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, and one of the hardest parts about it has been keeping a straight face while reading their parts in the gut-busting script.
“It’s been fun,” Moody said. “This is my first time acting in a play. It’s been a pleasure to get into the role of being the owner and operator of the ranch.”
The fundraiser dinner is hosted annually by the Friends of the Bruton Memorial Library and was started in 1999 by Dr. Hal Brewer. It’s the biggest annual fundraising event the group has and all proceeds go to the library’s summer children’s programming, extra activities and other services available throughout the year.
“It’s always lots of fun and lots of laughs,” Tonda Morris, Bruton’s director of library services, said. “It’s amateur, but it’s fun. I’ve always enjoyed it. I’ve done it in other libraries, too, and I think it’s a great thing that really relates to what libraries are about.”
The dinner show is also meant to raise awareness about the wealth of services the library provides to the Plant City community, all accessible with just a library card. It’s not just a place to go read or check out a book, after all. Card-holders can use the Internet and check out mobile hotspots, which the library is hoping to add more of in coming months. In a month or so, they’ll be able to take laptops from a new self-serve kiosk anywhere in the library for added privacy. Those with kids can take advantage of numerous programming options to keep them both engaged and educated, and even something as simple as story time comes with several time options to accommodate the schedules of just about any parent or guardian. There’s more, of course, but the library is planning to debut a fun video the staff made during the intermission to show people firsthand what it can do.
“A lot of people, because of e-books and digital resources, they don’t realize the library’s still going strong,” Morris said. “People come in every day. We have about 14,000 visitors a month. We still do story times. We show people how to get their e-books on our Libby app… I think it’s great for making people aware of what the library’s doing today and how services have changed.”
911 Catering is handling the cooking duties for the dinner show, which runs from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets cost $75 each and can be purchased at both the library and at Regions Bank. For more information about the Friends of the Bruton Memorial Library, visit brutonfriends.org.