Meadville Community Theatre’s next show is Pick Your Poison, to be performed November 14-23, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 2:00pm.

Pick Your Poison is a little seen show. Only one other production is scheduled for this year in the whole country. It could be because the cast has to learn eight different endings.

And the cast won’t know until right before the second act which one they will do!

Pick Your Poison is a murder mystery farce in the style of the “country house murder.” Sir Nicholas Blackburn invites his old friends, acquaintances, and one stranger to visit him at his country estate, but some of them may not live through the weekend. The audience votes at intermission on which of the eight main characters is the murder, and the winning vote determines which one of eight alternative endings are played at that performance.

MCT’s Production

Director Abby Stine has already selected her cast and they are currently rehearsing. Jessie Rhoades, Kaleigh White, William Marceau IV, Aaron Stine, Kelly Perrett, Vinnie Sheehan-Kohler, Aaron Butler, and Adam Leute play the pool of suspects audiences have to choose from.

Abby says, “I thought that the audience participation factor of the show would be really fun for both the audience and the cast, as well as a challenge.  I actually had my high school drama director tell me she would never do a show with multiple endings before she knew about me directing this show, so I took it as a bit of a challenge for myself to make this show really fun.”

Work continues to happen on the theater itself as well. The MCT Board and volunteers learned a lot from the first show of the season. They are taking what they learned to this next show. This includes improvements that moved up in precedence to improve our audience’s experience. One change: you get to pick your seats for this show. This is a first for MCT; picking your seat before you arrive at the theater has never been done before. Seats were assigned by our volunteers unless you bought at the door.

Get those tickets and claim your favorite spot before it’s gone! Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased here or reserved by phone at 814-333-1773.