Curtain Call
William Terriss · Adelphi Theatre · 1897
“The house is filling. The company still has to go on.”
- Players
- 6 to 12 adults, plus the host
- At its best
- 6 to 9 guests
- Runs
- 2 to 3 hours with dinner
- Setting
- Adelphi Theatre, London, 1897
- History
- Real case: The killing of William Terriss
- Suits
- Loud tables that like to accuse. Classic whodunnit
- Best for
- Dinner parties
- Difficulty
- Easy to moderate
- Acting
- None needed. Short lines to read where the story needs them
- You need
- A TV or laptop, and a phone each
- Delivery
- Instant access. Printable pack included
- The host
- Plays the victim, then runs the inquiry
- Price
- A$39, one payment
- Content
- Real people are portrayed. Involves a stabbing at a stage door, a career destroyed by a jilting, and a real man with mental illness who is wrongly suspected. The killer is invented; every real person is innocent.
Half past seven at the Adelphi and the house is filling. Gas and greasepaint, wet wool off the Strand, a company running late because a company is always running late. The leading man comes to the stage door the way he comes to it every night of his working life. What happens there stops the evening cold, and by nine o'clock every person in the building has been asked where they were standing, including a good many who were nowhere near.
That is as much as the file will give you. The rest arrives act by act, and the theatre keeps its secrets in the wings until somebody at your table goes looking.
What you get
Fully scripted evening
Every act cued, every scene set, your lines where you need them. No prep, no printing, no experience required.
Clues arrive in stages
Evidence and private dossiers drop to your guests' phones as the night unfolds, one act at a time.
You play the victim
Set the table, welcome your guests, then haunt the evening while they work out who wanted you gone.
6 to 12 players
A core cast carries the case, with flexible roles as your table grows. Latecomers can join as observers.
App-hosted
The case runs from any screen in the room. Your TV is the stage, the phones are the wings.
William Terriss, one of the best known actors of the Victorian stage, was fatally attacked at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in London in December 1897. His death shocked the theatrical world, and the outcome of the case was argued over at the time and is argued over still.
The game reopens the case and reaches a solution of its own. Knowing the history will not spoil your night, and history does not decide the verdict at your table. Your guests do.
These were real people and real deaths. The file is written with that in mind: we reopen the questions, not the graves.
Take it to trial.
This case can end at the reveal, or it can go to trial: the person your table accused stands in the dock, your guests become the jury, and nobody learns who really did it until the verdict is in. The trial is invented: an alternative ending, clearly labelled as one, and not the historical record.
The trial for Curtain Call is coming soon. Trials are released case by case, starting with The Masque at Carfax Hall. When it arrives, the trial can also be played on its own, as a jury case.
Reopen Curtain Call.
Host it at your own table. Nothing to print, no script to learn, and you play the victim, so you finally get to attend your own party.