Option 2) Skit and Clue based games are a great intermediate murder mystery experience bridging the gap between a fully cast event and a “no cast” event.

With these you need 6 actors capable of learning very minimal lines, which means they can be very novice actors, and people who just like to ham things up are ideal! So long as they can throw their voices sufficiently in a room full of guests that’s great.

These games have the benefit of having a “dead body” contained with the plot – which guest love. There’s screaming to announce a murder, and another death midway through the evening to really spice things up – BUT in order to keep things as simple as possible, rather than making the cast learn a lot of back story – instead the plot is provided to the guests on slips of paper which they must barter and exchange with other groups in order to see enough clues to solve the plot.

Church groups LOVE these style of murder mystery evenings as the whole room becomes involved in reviewing clues and exchanging them between teams. It makes for great interaction between teams, rather than everyone just watching a team of actors. It’s also fairly “low key” so it’s not a threatening level of performance, and the audience know exactly what’s expected of them at any point.