EV
Founder & head writer
A former West End dramaturg who writes our mysteries and tailors each one to the group we’re playing to. Believes a good mystery is 40% plot and 60% people watching each other lie.
About us
We turn dinner parties into crime scenes.
A company of writers and actors devoted to one idea: the best stories are the ones you get to stand inside.
It started with a ruined dinner party.
In 2014, dramaturg Eleanor Vane and director Marcus Thornwood threw a murder mystery for a friend’s birthday. The store-bought kit was flat, the twists were obvious, and there were no actors at all. Halfway through, they started improvising — and the room came alive.
They rebuilt the whole thing from scratch: real actors, a script of their own, and a crime that unfolded around the guests instead of being read at them. Word travelled. One birthday became a company.
A decade later we’ve staged more than six hundred evenings across Toronto and Ontario — from cramped downtown condos to candlelit country estates — and we still believe what we learned at that first party: people don’t want to watch a mystery. They want to be in one.
See how an evening unfolds- Evenings staged
- 600+
- Scripts to choose from
- 5
- Resident actors
- 28
- Average host rating
- 4.9
What sets us apart
Three things we never compromise
Tailored to your crowd
Tried-and-tested scripts, adapted every time. Pick your mystery and we weave in your guests’ names, your occasion, your in-jokes and your venue.
Professionally acted
Our resident company are trained stage actors and improvisers. They hold character all night — even when your uncle tries to break them.
Staged around you
We adapt the crime, the cast and the space to your guests. You host the party; we build the world it happens inside.
The company
The people who’ll deceive you
A small, obsessive team of writers and performers — and the ones you’ll never suspect until it’s too late.
MT
Artistic director
Directs the resident company and trains every actor in long-form improvisation. Once kept a room of forty guests convinced he was innocent for three straight hours. He wasn’t.
PA
Lead actor & casting
Our most requested femme fatale, and the person who decides which of your guests becomes the prime suspect. Choose your seat at dinner carefully.
JO
Production & staging
Turns dining rooms into speakeasies and back gardens into crime scenes. Travels with more candles, decanters and fake blood than any one person reasonably should.
Come and be a suspect.
Bring the guests. We’ll bring the murder.