MOSES LAKE — If you’re looking for a calm, slow-paced play, “Clue: On Stage” ain’t it. 

The comic farce, based on the 1985 movie which in turn was based on the classic board game, careens from one surprise and plot twist to another at breakneck speed, which makes it a challenge to stage.  

“I've really been trying to get a roller coaster feel,” said Sharon Winningham, the Moses Lake High School drama advisor and director of the MLHS production. “The pacing is really tough, because you can't just have frenetic all the way through … As a director, I think a lot about levels, and that's physical levels for visual interest, but also emotional levels and making vocal differences as well. So hopefully we have plenty of variety, because it's something that I'm conscious of.” 

The premise of the story is well known: The wealthy Mr. Boddy (Peter Martin) has invited six guests to his mansion, and then suddenly turns up dead, leaving the guests, — Mr. Green (Nick Ealy), Mrs. Peacock (Calissa Dalton), Professor Plum (Jaden Salazar), Miss Scarlet (Paisley Ashton), Col. Mustard (Damian Gonzales) and Mrs. White (Llayleni Fuentes) — to figure out whodunit, in which room and with what weapon. Mr. Boddy’s butler, Wadsworth (Desmond Sells), and French maid Yvette (Ruby Nishida) take part in the search for clues as well. But each of the characters has secrets of their own, and things are very seldom what they seem. 

Audiences in the Basin have already had the opportunity to see “Clue: On Stage” a couple of times recently; Othello High School staged the play in November and the Masquers Theater in Soap Lake performed it last month. Moses Lake’s production uses the same script as Othello did, a specially edited version suitable for a teenage troupe; the original script the Masquers used is a bit bawdier. 

The Moses Lake performance has a few differences. The character of Wadsworth is usually played as the archetypal English butler; Sells plays him as Scottish. 

“In audition, one of the things (we asked) was please audition with your (English) accent,” Winningham said. “Desmond got the part because his accent was good, but he also had a little Scottish in it. And then when we started rehearsal, he couldn’t get the (English) accent again, and the Scottish accent was charming, so we went with the one he was most comfortable with.” 

“It feels kind of natural sometimes, if I’m being honest,” Sells said. “There's a point in the show where I get to do everyone else's accents; I get to play as everyone else a little bit. So that’s also really fun.” 

For much of the play, Wadsworth is something of a puppet master, manipulating the other characters, but that comes apart later, Sells said. 

“He knows what's going on,” Sells said. “He's got complete control over everyone. And then as soon as Mr. Boddy comes in with the weapons, he kind of drops the ball. He's like, ‘This isn't going according to plan.’ He loses his cool then, he loses his façade and becomes this crazy guy trying to regain that control.” 

Mrs. White has buried several husbands under questionable circumstances, so it’s fitting to dress her all in black, Fuentes said. Playing a semi-villainess is a new thing for her, she said, and so are the high heels Mrs. White wears. 

“We have to run a lot and my feet are starting to hurt,” she said. “I’m waiting for a scrape on my knee or a bruise.” 

There are a few things the cast has integrated into the play that the audience will need to pay attention to catch, Fuentes said. 

“We'll react differently to different corpses, which I think is nice because it gives you little hints of who's done what,” she said. “And then the way we react to each room.”

The 1950s styles are another thing to watch for, Fuentes said. 

“I'm a little nerd about the hair,” she said. “For Miss Scarlet’s, we did Hollywood waves, like Marilyn (Monroe)-style waves. For Miss Peacock we did Hollywood waves, but more like a gelled-down version. And for mine I did a Hedy Lamar style. I went deep dive because this is my last show; I’m a senior. So I wanted the hair and makeup to be accurate, but also whimsical. It’s a board game.” 

Making a set that covers seven rooms plus a couple of secret passages took some ingenuity, Winningham said. Some theaters use images projected onto a light fabric screen called a scrim, but the design of the high school theater made that unworkable, she said. Instead, the students constructed sets that could be turned around and moved on- and offstage quickly. The stage crew is larger than usual, she added, almost as many as cast members. 

“We have a door that's on wheels and it'll slide on and off, so it acts as the study door that they can go in and out,” she said. “Then when the study opens, we just push that door off, and voila, you've got the study behind it, which then also becomes the kitchen as we turn some stuff around and change the lighting. And our billiard room is a turnaround wall piece.” 

The biggest challenge in performing “Clue: On Stage” has been staying in character, Fuentes said. 

“This play is really funny,” she said. “With Mustard’s lines, or Peacock’s, I can't stop laughing, and my (character’s) thing is I have to be mute and monotone throughout the whole show. It's really hard to keep a straight face.” 

Clue: On Stage 

7 p.m. March 7, 8, 10 and 11  

Bonus showing: 2 p.m. March 8 

Moses Lake High School, 803 E. Sharon Ave. 

12 evening performances, $10 matinee 

Tickets available at https://bit.ly/MLHSClue25 

    Yvette (Ruby Nishida, left) knows how to get through a locked door: just shoot the doorknob off, to the dismay of Wadsworth (Desmond Sells) in the Moses Lake High School production of “Clue: On Stage.”
  

    Mrs. Peacock (Calissa Dalton, right) and Mrs. White (Llayleni Fuentes) watch as Mr. Green (Nick Ealy) is crushed under a chandelier.
  

    From left: Col. Mustard (Damian Gonzalez), Mrs. White (Llayleni Fuentes) Mr. Green (Nick Ealy), Professor Plum (Jaden Salazar) and Miss Scarlet (Paisley Ashton) discuss what to do about the corpses of the cook (Marilyn Massart) and Mr. Boddy (Peter Martin).
  

    Miss Scarlet (Paisley Ashton, left) and Col. Mustard (Damian Gonzalez) find themselves in a secret passage.