Stage Right presents the funniest murder mystery ever with The Play That Goes Wrong
Autumn in Conroe will be filled with laughs galore as Stage Right presents the hilarious, award-winning comedy The Play That Goes Wrong September 6 – 22 at the historic Crighton Theatre on Main Street.
The British comedy import, written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre Company, follows a performance of the fictional 1920s murder mystery, Murder at Haversham Manor, where the actors and crew of the ill-fated Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society encounter numerous mishaps.
The original production has been running since 2012 in London, where it won Best New Comedy at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards. Since 2014, the play has undertaken five tours of the UK, and a Broadway production ran from 2017 – 2019 and then continued off-Broadway.
The Crighton is uniquely handled to present the play, with the theatre’s tall ceilings and old-world history adding to a show that would be near impossible to mount on lesser stages.
The show is directed by Sean K. Thompson, who most recently directed the favorably received Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story last season at the Crighton, and whose roles on that stage include The Man in the Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone. Thompson is the winner of the 2022 Broadway World Houston Award for Best Director.
“I’ve wanted to direct this show ever since I first heard about it years ago,” said Thompson. “In 2017, I directed a production of Noises Off in Houston – incidentally at practically the exact same time as Stage Right’s own production of it – and fell in love with the zany backstage shenanigans that play shows us. Goes Wrong is a shirt-tail relative to Noises Off, both of them being a revelation to the audience on what goes on during a serious show that falls apart. But while Noises Off concentrates on backstage, Goes Wrong takes place entirely on stage.”
The hilarious issues that befall the murder mystery include misplaced props, forgotten lines, dialogue loops, cast replacements, and a set that literally falls apart. Thompson also warns that the show technically begins the moment the audience enters the theatre’s front doors before curtain time.
Thompson credits his actors for keeping up with the pace of the comedy that the show physically demands. Of the eight actors, six of them essentially play two roles each; the acting member of Cornley Polytechnic, and the role they play in the murder mystery.
“For instance, Shawn Havranek plays Chris, the director of Haversham, and also plays its central character, Inspector Carter. So, he has to come up with two separate characters – both British – to realistically portray his presence. The same goes for the others in the murder mystery: Ara Hollyday, Lauren Mulacek, Jonathan Rozas, Stephen Sampson, and Bain Beason. Each one has to show us two separate characters.”
The additional two cast members, Sherry Rozas and Carlos Soto, play the show-within-a-show’s stage manager and techie, respectively. Both characters find themselves thrust onto the stage when mayhem strikes and ends up with the occasional cast member knocked unconscious. Additionally, the real-life technical and set crew play a crucial role in the onstage antics.
“If you want a good, hearty laugh at every actor’s and director’s worst nightmare come to reality, you need to see this show, and understand that every single person in theatre has faced what befalls the cast of Haversham in the actual real world,” said Thompson.
The Play That Goes Wrong is also assistant-directed by Justine Gray and stage managed by Cameron Collier.
The play runs September 6 – 22, Friday and Saturday evenings
at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday afternoons
at 2:00 p.m.
Tickets are available online at
stage-right.org or by calling the box office at 936-441-7469.