Readers Theatre to feature whodunit mysteries

Actors - men, women and of various ages - read lines from paper setting on music stands inside the Missouri River Regional Library Wednesday night in preparation for its upcoming Readers Theatre.

They acted out a radio show from 1939 titled, "Americans at Work: The Librarian." Their voices were fitting for their characters - a radio announcer, librarian, strict mother and father and a young boy with library fines - in order to bring the story to life.

The Missouri River Regional Library (MRRL) Foundation will hold its Readers Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday as a fundraiser for the library. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. both nights. The foundation raises funds to improve the library's programs, services and capital projects. Readers Theatre first started at the library in 2009, according to Mark Wegman, Readers Theatre director and MRRL staff member. It has taken place multiple times since.

"Americans at Work" is one of three old-time radio shows 16 actors, including Wegman, will perform for the Readers Theatre. Two mystery scripts are the main performances - in hope of giving audiences a feeling of Halloween in early October. Stories to be recited were picked out of "Inner Sanctum" and "The Shadow," two old-time radio show series that originally aired in 1944 and 1940, respectively.

From "Inner Sanctum," actors will read "The Voice on the Wire" - the story of Geraldine, a woman whose husband was killed in a house fire. Someone calls her repeatedly, playing her husband's music and telling her how many days she has left to live.

"The Laughing Corpse" comes from "The Shadow" series. In that mystery, scientists are encountering something during an experiment that forces them to laugh uncontrollably and then die, giving new meaning to the phrase, "dying laughing." The character, "The Shadow" emerges to solve the case. Wegman said both scripts are "very suspenseful."

"And I have very good actors who've taken on the roles who really bring them to life," Wegman said. "Some people who've come to the Readers Theatre have come here and just closed their eyes and listened, like it is on the radio."

In addition to their speaking parts, actors will create live sound effects to place audience members in the scenes. Chris Kennison, a Readers Theatre actor, said the sounds, such as creaky doors, howling dogs and blaring organs, are his favorite aspects to the performances. Everything about the Readers Theatre, he said, needs to be animated.

"You have to have fun with the characters and really ham it up," Kennison said.

Readers Theatre, including an intermission, will last about two hours.