Who dun it? The Platte City Friends of the Arts did.
I had the opportunity to attend the Friends of the Arts fund raiser ‘Til Death Do Us Part held Saturday, Nov. 10 at The Fields at 1890.
Jeanette Faubion
The Citizen helped sponsor the event, along with fellow corporate sponsors including Eighteen Ninety, Salt Catering, KC Mystery Players and others.
The venue was full — good news for Friends of the Arts — and the dinner by Salt Catering delicious. In fact, my husband wants a couple of those recipes. The highlight of the show was, of course, the show, presented by KC Mystery Players and telling the comedic tale of a wedding rehearsal dinner gone wrong.
Kudos to the players, particularly the wedding planner’s assistant who wrangled members of the audience into the show and kept things moving. The wedding party and much of the cast was made up of audience members who stretched their own improv muscles to murder the overbearing wedding planner.
It’s a fitting fund raiser for Friends of the Arts, which hosts free community entertainment and arts events in Platte City. Founded in 1999, Friends of the Arts has supported vocal and instrumental music, visual arts, theater and dance and provided scholarships to college-bound seniors studying the arts.
Platte City Friends of the Arts hosts or sponsors the Platte City Community Band, the Platte City Summer Concert Series, Art in the Park and more, and partners with Weston Community Theatre. The group also sponsors art shows for Platte County R-3 School District students and adult artists in the community.
The group is sponsored by the City of Platte City, Wells Bank, Platte City Airport Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram and dozens more but is always in need of more sponsors to continue providing free events to the Platte City community.
I won’t give away the end, but the performance Saturday night was a good time and seems like a creative way to put the fun in fund raising.
It was a far cry from my own experience with murder mystery dinners, when we attempted to organize one as a team-building activity for the staff of my college newspaper, The Griffon News at Missouri Western.
Our copy editor lived in one of the large, old (dilapidated) mansions in downtown St. Joseph that looked like a great setting for a mystery. We bought a boxed “host your own murder mystery” set and made a vat of spaghetti and meatballs. I think we had maybe five people show up.
Luckily, Friends of the Arts did a better job than I, and since KC Mystery Players has several options for additional murder mysteries it could become a recurring event. My husband is all in for it.
Friends of the Arts next event will be a Platte City Community Band Sounds of Christmas concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3 at the Wilson Center for the Performing Arts at Platte County High School. Special guests for this concert will be the Leavenworth Cody Choraliers, a 4-part, a cappella, barbershop-style ensemble. Admission is free, but monetary donations and non-perishable food items will be accepted.
Members of the community band will also perform at the Platte City Holiday Lighting Ceremony, starting at 5:30 p.m. in downtown Platte City.