Need Idea for High School Drama Performance- Mystery Theme?

Question

Hi, I'm in high school and for our fall semester final my class has to perform an original mystery Theater Performance, and i was looking for some ideas.
-Time period may be anytime.
-It's got to be an original idea, not like doing a spin-off of "Clue" or Scooby Doo.

10-15 minute performance

6 characters.

Answer 1

I wrote a play that is a sort of parody of 1940s detective movies. It has only been performed once, in Utah. It is very clean, so you would have no problem getting it accepted to do at a high school. It's set in Santa Monica, California, and it's called "Johnny O'Neill and the Case of the Star-Crossed Sapphire." Let me know if you want a copy of the script to read, or part of it, to see if it's something you'd be interested in. I have also written a mystery set in the Old West that is in the format of mystery dinner theater, which I believe is also clean enough for high school students to do. That one is set in Arizona and is called "Murder at Square Knott Ranch." So drop a line if you want to know more.
P.S. Oh, if it's a short performance maybe you can do something like a comedy improv sketch. The comedy improv group I have seen several times will do something where someone has committed a murder with a really bizarre weapon, like a necktie made of toothpaste or something. The first person has to explain what happened, but he has to use gibberish and pantomime to explain who was killed and how. The second person can also only speak in gibberish. I've only seen this done with 2 "translations", so to speak, but it might be funny to see it done with 6 translations. You could have the 6th person be the one who finally decides to call the police. Maybe he/she is the only one who can speak intelligibly in complete sentences. Perhaps what comes out is nothing like the original version, and the other 5 give the 6th person a strange look and start pointing at arguing with at each other as if to say, "Hey, you messed up on your version."