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Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Jon Disse, portrayed by Jim Donnelly, is quized by audience members at Pacific Fresh restaurant as they try to figure out who killed Polly Estor. Playwright Katie Hassett says the interactive nature of Mystery By Design performances is key to their success.

Killer Dinner

Pacific Fresh serves up murder with dinner

By Steve Enders

Katie Hassett and her husband, Fred, are into murder.

Their murders are so popular, in fact, that they've just about gotten the entire Silicon Valley into the act.

For seven years at Sunnyvale's Pacific Fresh restaurant, Katie Hassett has been serving up murder mystery acts with dinner.

She's also taken her 110-member troupe, called Mystery By Design, to different businesses, performing for banquets and employee team- building functions. The troupe has played for companies along the West Coast, as well as Hawaii and Arizona.

Hassett conceived of the idea more than a decade ago after she heard from a friend that, in England, acting troupes present murder mysteries that stretch over entire weekends.

That person suggested it might work during the course of a single evening, and Hassett took the idea and ran with it.

At Pacific Fresh, a large banquet room is filled to its 120-person capacity on a Saturday night. Black stage curtains line the room, closing it off from the rest of the large restaurant.

The tables are split by crisscrossing aisles, and most people sit about four to each table. Some tables are joined, and others have little space between them. The seating is pre-arranged, so many guests sit with or near people they've never met before as they begin the first course of their four-course meal.

In between precisely timed service runs by the wait staff, the cast, which tonight numbers six, begins mingling with the audience and setting up the mystery--providing clues by randomly approaching tables and talking with the guests.

Fred Hassett says that two things separate Mystery By Design's crew from others who perform murder mysteries.

"The mingling of the actors--that started a while ago. It really makes the people feel involved," he said. "The other is that we get information on people who are there, and Katie puts it into the scripts."

Katie Hassett has written more than 1,600 scripts for Mystery By Design. Her husband, Fred, is a self-described check writer for the company. Fred has also acted in a few of the mysteries.

Katie Hassett said audience members derive vicarious pleasure from the productions, envisioning themselves in the middle of the conflicts. At some point in most scripts, the players argue, Hassett said, and audience members can see themselves in the players' shoes, standing up to someone.

Tonight's mystery unfolds at "Mac Arune's Marvelous Madcap, Serendipitous Spa," which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The actors' costumes are simple, consisting of white bathrobes with various accessories added for humorous flavor.

Spa worker Slim Down looks downright silly. He is a loud, brash Southerner who, in addition to his robe, wears a large cowboy hat, leather boots and a thick brown belt complete with championship rodeo belt buckle.

As the actors weave in and out of the crowd, Hassett describes Mystery By Design's relationship with the restaurant.

"We don't use any other restaurant [regularly]. They've got great management, and we've got a great working relationship," Hassett says.

This is true, one waitress said, because it takes precise timing from them to get the food out while the actors take their stage breaks. The staff from Pacific Fresh has gone to other restaurants where a mystery is to take place to train wait staffs.

The mystery has five acts and a cleverly written story, complete with deception, quirky character names and cliffhangers leading into the intermissions.

Tonight, one of the spa's staff has broken into Rose Tattoo's medical chest, stolen a syringe full of morphine and stabbed Polly Estor in the back, killing her right in the middle of the main course of dinner.

Before she dies, Polly threatens each of the other characters with blackmail, and now it's up to the audience--using the clues dropped throughout the night--to determine who did it and why.

At the end of the night, audience members fill out a slip of paper, and whoever guesses the murderer correctly and identifies up to three main clues wins one of three prizes, including a trip back to Pacific Fresh for another mystery.

Kim Justimbaste, who hosts murder mystery parties of her own at her house in Modesto, came with two friends for the first time to see the show. They enjoyed the professionalism of Hassett's troupe, she said.

"We heard of this through an ad, and we're so glad we came. We'd definitely do it again," she says.

Hassett actually bought her first mystery script, which her troupe acted out at Opryland in Nashville, Tenn. She has since written all the others.

"I'm still not sure I can write, though!" says a laughing Hassett.

Judging from the audience's reaction, her mysteries are well written--this despite the fact that it takes Hassett a month to write and produce the plays.

Hassett writes the plays in her San Jose home, and most of the rehearsals take place there as well. Some rehearsals are held in the restaurant so the actors can get a feel for the "stage."

The cast is composed of professional actors, most of whom work full time at another job. Slim Down, played by Gary Davis of Antioch, is really a mortgage banker.

Davis works the crowd well, providing off-the-cuff commentary to members of the audience, who get more involved with the mystery as the play progresses.

The audience is encouraged to participate, and guests often make comments and snide remarks to cast members as they act out their parts. Throughout the night, people seated at their tables are becoming more involved as partners in solving the crime.

This is the key to Hassett's corporate functions. Better working teams are built because they have to work together to solve the mystery.

"People just wanted something different" from their average corporate banquet or department meeting, she says.

"It really gets people mingling." Besides, Katie says, it's a good way to get employees' spouses, who normally would be timid at a business function, involved with their partners' co-workers and their spouses.

The idea has spread by word of mouth all over the Silicon Valley.

"Each year we think it's going to die out, but it keeps on going," she said.

When Mystery By Design holds a corporate function, she says, she often writes employees into the scripts. That could be anyone from the president of the company to the guest speaker at a banquet.

"If they're having speakers, we find out the thrust of the speaker and write that into the script," she said. "We get information on guests--like their idiosyncrasies or a faux pas and write them into the scripts also."

This keeps the ideas fresh, she says, and makes people enjoy it more.

"People get really surprised when they hear their name called out or find out they've been included in the dialogue," said Katie Hassett.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, February 4, 1998.
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