Curtain Call
William Terriss · Adelphi Theatre · 1897
“The house is filling. The company still has to go on.”
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.
Reopen Curtain Call.
Host it for your own table, or take the free case for a spin first and see how the evidence treats you.