The Red Velvet Swing
Stanford White · New York · 1906
“Three hundred witnesses, and no two of them saw the same thing.”
- Players
- 6 to 12 adults, plus the host
- At its best
- 8 to 12 guests
- Runs
- 2 to 3 hours with dinner
- Setting
- Madison Square, New York, 1906
- History
- Real case: The killing of Stanford White
- Suits
- Loud tables that like to accuse. Classic whodunnit
- Best for
- Birthdays and bigger 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. The heaviest case in the catalogue: involves a shooting, and the historical sexual exploitation of young women by the victim, including a daughter who did not survive the disgrace. The killer is invented; every real person is innocent.
New York in late June, and the coolest place in the city is a roof. Champagne, a chorus, a table for everyone who matters and a better table for everyone who believes they do. The architect who drew the building is out front in the audience of his own creation. When the evening comes apart there are hundreds of witnesses in the room, all of them respectable, all of them certain, and no two of them describing the same handful of seconds.
That is as much as the file will give you. The rest lands on your guests' phones in stages, and every witness at your table will be sure of something different by the end of the second act.
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.
Stanford White, the architect who shaped a great deal of Gilded Age New York, was shot dead at the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden in June 1906, in front of a crowded room. The trials that followed were reported around the world and ended without a conviction for murder. What happened that night, and why, is still disputed.
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 The Red Velvet Swing 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 The Red Velvet Swing.
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.