Mystery On College Hill Participatory Performance Outdoors

It happened one evening on College Hill.

Or did it? Or will it still?

Pullman residents will get to decide on their own this week when a Boston-based outdoor theater group brings its “Watching the Detectives” murder mystery to town.

Several neighborhoods will become the stage for a large-scale participatory mystery performance, in which the characters, place and events are part of Pullman’s real and fictional past.

Part walking tour, part scavenger hunt, the made-up story of a murder weaves Pullman’s truths and tales into a mystery. Audience members must sort out fact from fiction using trivia-related clues from the neighborhood.

Did Timothy Leary live in a bungalow here as a graduate student? (Yes.) Was WSU voted by Playboy as one of the nation’s top party schools in the 1970s? (No.)

“The murder mystery gets them interested, but the real goal is to open their eyes to their neighborhood and make them see their houses and streets in a different way, with a historical aura about them,” said co-director Gary Duehr.

“Watching the Detectives” is the brainchild of Studebaker Theater, a group of Boston visual and performance artists. Four members arrived here Sunday to spend the week preparing for the weekend performances, sponsored by WSU’s Visual, Performing and Literary Arts Committee and the College Hill Association. College Hill is the old Pullman area that houses WSU’s campus as well as student, staff and residential housing.

WSU’s Museum of Art interim director Marty Mullen coordinated the group’s Pullman visit. She sent Duehr and co-director Lesley Bannatyne boxes of old photos and stories from the Whitman County Historical Society and area newspapers to help them rewrite the plot using local history.

“The script has been Pullmanized,” Duehr said.

WSU architecture students will help construct art pieces to be installed throughout the neighborhood this week. Residents will be asked their approval, and neighbors will be enlisted for help this week. Actors are needed.

On Saturday and Sunday, up to 200 audience members can play private investigator. Armed with a map, clues, and a list of eccentric characters to visit, the participants will fan out over College Hill in an attempt to solve a crime. Some people they encounter will be actors. Some will be neighborhood residents. Some might be spontaneously adding their own layers of mystery.

The group decided to take their show to the streets of various cities after losing its permanent performance space six years ago. Pullman is the fourth location for a performance and the first small town.

“We’ve worked only in the big city urban areas where houses are thick, so we are looking forward to a place where there’s a little more space,” Bannatyne said.

The group has 100 portable tape recorders that audience members can use to hear taped instructions during the performance, but participants are encouraged to bring their own. The audience will be split into groups, and each group will be given a script with information presented in different order so it develops alternative perceptions about what took place.

“Hopefully we’ll get 100 different stories out of the same set of facts,” Bannatyne said.

At the end of the performance, the audience members will all gather in one house to resolve the mystery.

“They get to play private eye,” Bannatyne said. “They get to decide who’s really innocent, who’s really guilty, or is it just a point of view?

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ‘WATCHING THE DETECTIVES’ Washington State University students and staff and members of the Pullman community are invited to get involved in “Watching the Detectives,” an outdoor theatrical/art experience scheduled from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in the neighborhoods of College Hill. There are eight scripted roles, unlimited walk-on parts, creation and installation of outdoor artwork and other assignments available. Auditions and an informational meeting will be at 7 p.m. today in the Compton Union Building Gridiron Room. Audience reservations are suggested for performances because participation is limited. To sign up, call the activities office at 335-9666. Participants are asked to bring audio cassette recorders if they have them and report to Wadleigh Theatre in Daggy Hall before the 3 p.m. performance. Reservations will be held until 2:45 each day. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Marty Mullen, 335-1910.