The Gourmet Detective has been a professional in the food and murder business since 1990. What makes us unique is our emphasis on the patron’s overall experience. Our murder mystery characters interact and “play” with interested audience members during the show while serving up an elegant dinner as the mystery unfolds.

• Vintage theater sets and costuming
• Three course dinner served by the suspects
• Live period music
• Rave reviews

“Raves… Best Dinner Theater” — Orange Coast Magazine
“Best of the West . . . Best Mystery Dinner Theater” — Sunset Magazine

The Details: The show runs every weekend indefinitely. There is a $30 to $40 stipend plus gratuities.  (Averaging $30 to $70 per actor) per show.   The show will be in our new banquet room located above The Tamale Factory in Old Town Riverside on the Main Street Walkway across from the Mission Inn.

Auditions: Open audition, September 8th 10am-4pm.  Auditions will be held at The Tamale Factory located at 3663 Main Street in Riverside.  Parking is available on Mission Inn Ave.  The restaurant is located on the Main Street Walkway across from the Mission Inn.

Prepare: 1 minute monologue and 16 bars of a song.

Callbacks: Will be held later the same evening.

The Show: Murder at the Café Noir
Welcome to St. Vincent Island and the Caribbean’s finest club around…come to think of it, it’s the only club around. That means that every denizen of this remote paradise naturally congregates here and shares one thing in common: a shadowy past. Unravel this 1940’s classic “whodunit” style mystery, as you discover the sordid lies and broken lives of the patrons of the Café Noir.

The Characters:
Richard Archer – 30’s to 40’s, private eye
Madame Toureau – 30’s to 40’s, French proprietor of The Café Noir, must sing
Sheila Wonderly – 20’s, southern belle turned prostitute, must sing
Anthony Cairo – 20’ to 40’s, black marketer, underworld character
Maria Larue – 20’s to 30’s, exotic voodoo priestess, likeable
Simon Gutterman – 30’s to 40’s, disbarred British barrister, a suave lush
Thursby – quick-tempered, two-bit gunrunner
Vangilder – Dutch blackmailer
Inspector Rigfield – Cockney deputy inspector
(Thursby, Van Gilder, and Inspector Rigfield are played by the same actor, 20’s – 40’s)