Sunday, March 8, 2015

1940s Mystery Dinner Night

My good friends at one of my favorite local dance clubs - (Swing Kids of Western Washington University in Bellingham Washington) rather enthusiastically told me about an event being put together by a number of WWU student organizations.  Those organizations were: Foulplay - A murder mystery club, Viking Radio Theatre - a radio drama program, and, of course, Swing Kids - the university swing dance club.

They said that people would be dressing 1940s style and that there would be dancing.  Naturally, that sounded interesting to me so I decided to attend.

The event took place in the historic Fairhaven Library building in the quaint old downtown area of Fairhaven Washington.  I was pleasantly surprised to see how heavily attended the event was.  The line to get into the building was quite long.  A fair number of sharp thinking couples apparently decided that this event would make a great date night.  I soon found out how right they were.




The staff at the registration desks had dressed the part.  This was looking good.




The mock casino gaming was taking place on the first floor of the building.



The Swing dancing was happening on the third floor complete with a beginning dance class by Swing Kids.
















We later sat down to an excellent catered buffet dinner as we enjoyed three live radio shows being put on by the cast of the Viking Radio Theatre hosted by Walter Lutsch.  These shows were all 1940s type radio dramas written and performed by the students.

First up was: "The adventures of Liz Baxter" a private Investigator story.



Next was: "Blood Gulch" a western.



Lastly there was: "Sergeant USA: A Nazi in New York" a wartime superhero story.



These performances were first rate entertainment and all those in attendance enjoyed them a great deal.


After the performances we took a break for more swing dancing and casino gaming.



To close out the night we were treated to a murder mystery by Foulplay.  Who would have guessed who the guilty party turned out to be - he looked so innocent!





As those who are regular readers of this blog are aware, I only write about clubs and events that really impress me a great deal. So as you already know I was very impressed with this entire event.  Everyone involved did an outstanding job.  They put on a really high quality show and all of us in the audience greatly enjoyed it.




Hats off to all of them, and all the best to them on their next entertaining endeavor,



Wylin Tjoelker    Dance Evangelist    Dance Club Review

PS.  You can listen to past episodes of Viking Radio Theatre at:  youtube.com/vikingradiotheatre