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At Mystery Dinner of Williamsburg, audiences become more than spectators.

By the end of each performance, actor Denis Reidy knows several audience members by name.

“They’re not just an audience,” he said. “You get to know them by the end of the show.”

By the end of the show, he said, they know you too.

It’s an experience unique to the dinner theater genre, and an experience Mystery Dinner of Williamsburg aims to present.

Here through September, the company made its Williamsburg debut in May.

Producer and director Matthew Marberry introduced his first mystery dinner location to the Outer Banks two years ago to much success. He decided to start a second location in Williamsburg this summer. Marberry, who used to perform in the Williamsburg area, thought the location perfect for dinner theater.

“The market’s incredible,” Marberry said of the different types of people Williamsburg attracts. “I just think that mystery dinner theater is something that really works well up here as well.”

Marberry said momentum has begun building, though it started somewhat slow.

“People don’t realize that we’re a new production, that we’re a new company,” he said.

Even so, no matter the company, the dinner theater concept always feels new.

Marberry said many different formats exist. For one, he described a mystery dinner theater he once attended in Charleston, S.C., that allowed audience members to read parts in the production. He described others where the performance followed the dinner.

Mystery Dinner of Williamsburg differs from both concepts, and that’s what makes the experience novel.

“Any mystery dinner theater that you go into, you kind of have a unique experience with each one,” Marberry said.

Over a two-hour period, guests consume a four-course meal while watching a five-act production, “The Sound of Murder,” written by Tim Hass. The story follows a 1940’s radio station struggling to stay in business, with television on the rise.

The fate of the station rests on success of its next show. But the station owner’s son, with television aspirations, sabotages the show. Then, someone is murdered, and audiences help solve the murder.

It’s a wacky, campy production, said cast member Daniel Abraham.

“It’s somewhere between intellectual humor and dad jokes,” he said.

With seating limited to 100 spots, Marberry said the performer-audience ratio never goes beyond one actor to 16 guests. Cast members serve courses between acts, allowing audiences the chance to “bribe” actors for clues, with fake money received at the beginning of the performance.

This is key, Marberry said. The bribing reveals the reasons, motives, goals behind each character’s actions.

“They’ll see that there’s some depth to these characters,” Marberry said.

For cast members, this means that no one performance is the same.

“People will talk back,” said cast member Gary T. Moore. “That keeps us all on our toes as entertainers.”

Moore, who currently works as a Colonial Williamsburg character interpreter, comes from a background in stage theater, and he’s found dinner theater to be a different world entirely.

“It’s so immersive,” Moore said. “You are right in the thick of it the entire time.”

Cast member Leah Thompson agreed.

“It keeps you in the moment,” she said.

Reidy hopes the experience keeps audiences in the moment, too.

“In this age of technology, with everybody getting more introverted … it really is great to have this kind of live theater where it’s just fun. It’s comedy,” Reidy said. “There’s no second takes.”

Bridges can be reached by phone at 757-345-2342.

Mystery Dinner of Williamsburg

When: Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays through Sept. 4; Seating begins at 7 p.m., show begins at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Fort Magruder Hotel (Williamsburg Wing), 6945 Pocahontas Trail

Tickets: $45.99/adults, $36.99/children. Tickets must be purchased before 2 p.m. on desired show date, available by calling 1-800-838-3006 or online at mysterydinnerwilliamsburg.com.

More info: Call 757-746-6968 or visit mysterydinnerwilliamsburg.com.