Ready to solve a mystery at home?
Four years ago, a group of Alexandrians combined their talents to launch the Literary Adventure Society, a play-at-home mystery game series based on classic detective stories set in Victorian London, featuring sleuths Sherlock Holmes and Loveday Brooke. Would-be detectives (up to six at a time) can order the $55 interactive mystery boxes that include audio plays, clues, as well as custom tea blends and scented candles to get everyone in the right frame of mind to unravel mind-bending crimes like A Scandal in Bohemia, The Dancing Men, and The Mystery of the Black Bag.
Kerry McGee and husband Jon Reynolds of We Happy Few Productions dreamed up the business during the pandemic with their friends Kiernan McGowan and Raven Bonniwell.
“In the beginning, a lot of theater companies turned to Zoom productions,” McGee said. “But after a while, everyone got Zoom-ed out. It wasn’t satisfying to be sitting at your computer anymore, and we asked ourselves about what different models could entertain people at home, where they don’t need to be glued to a screen. That was the idea behind it, and we were excited to be able to work with a lot of artists we do theater with.”
The mystery boxes are accompanied by high-quality audio play productions, voiced in McGee and Reynolds’ home studio.
“It’s like listening to an episode of Masterpiece on PBS,” said Reynolds, who performs as Sherlock Holmes in the audio performances. “Every so often, the detective comes across a piece of evidence, and Sherlock says, ‘We shall hold this evidence,’ and you pause it, and then you open the evidence, which is an envelope that’s very well labeled, and inside, you’re looking at exactly the same piece of evidence that Sherlock and Watson, or that Loveday Brooke is looking at, and when you’re ready, you press play again and the mystery resumes.”
The Literary Adventure Society has raised more than $6,300 on Kickstarter. Their goal is to expand to local and national bookstores.
“I find it very exhilarating to be the only company in Alexandria in Northern Virginia that we know of that’s doing stuff like this,” McGee said.
The troupe has also moved beyond mystery boxes to live venues. On Oct. 17, the Literary Adventure Society will appear at Big Bear Cafe in D.C. to perform their original Holmes story, The Mystery of the Secret Formula.
“What if Sherlock and Watson are at a Victorian-era science conference when a murder happens and it’s got to be solved,” Reynolds said. “We wrote an original story and used some of the same techniques that are in our boxes, where there’s evidence that the audience needs to examine to find the clues and help Sherlock solve the murder. We’ve designed it to be something fun that can happen in a restaurant, in a bar, in a library.”
