Killing It in the Smokies: A Murder Mystery Dinner Theater

Great Smoky Mountain Murder Mystery Dinner Theater: An honest review

“When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey. And when I drink water, I drink water,” Barry Fitzgerald’s Michaleen Oge Flynn in John Ford’s classic “The Quiet Man.”

“When I eat dinner, I eat dinner. And when I watch theater, I watch theater,” John Gullion in the Smoky Mountains every time he goes to a dinner theater show.

Look, I like dinner. It’s one of my favorite meals of the day. And I also enjoy theater and live shows and the like. But, in my experience, when you put the two of them together, one of the experiences suffer greatly.

Dinner theaters in the Smokies are big business

You’ve got the Dolly Parton properties – Pirates Voyage and Dinner Show, Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Feud and Dolly’s Stampede. These are big, elaborate shows with massive casts, live stunts, animal acts and more. They draw big crowds and are beloved. But they are also bland.

Theater shows in the mountains – by and large – have been overpackaged, produced and homogenized to the point that they are nearly interchangeable. They even serve the same bland meals at which the soup – somehow – is consistently the best part of the dinner.

It’s not that the shows themselves don’t contain entertaining pieces. The animal acts are good. I also enjoy the stunts. The singers and performers are talented. It’s just that there’s not a lot of life to it.

There are other entries as well. You’ve got Paula Deen’s Lumberjack Feud, which is a something of a different animal. Yes, you eat and there’s a show, but the show is more of an outdoor athletic competition. You also have Biblical Times, which because of its subject matter belongs in a different category as well. I am not about to critique the Bible stories on the quality of the songs or the jokes, you know?

Maybe the most interesting entry into this wide genre is the Great Smoky Mountains Murder Mystery Theater – a decidedly lower rent production in a strip mall across from the Mountain Mile. There’s no stage. They just clean out a large section in the middle of what you’d have to call the dining room and go to work

With an impossibly tiny cast operating on a ton of energy and little else, this dinner theater operation stands out. But is it worth it?

What is the Great Smoky Mountain Murder Mystery Dinner Theater?

I mean, the name really spells things out. It’s a Murder Mystery Dinner Theater located near the Great Smoky Mountains. The small troupe of players put on a small variety of shows – we recently saw “Moonshine Murders” which parodies the 80s television show “The Dukes of Hazzard,” but the set up for each show is fairly similar.

The first act sets everything up. Somebody dies in the second act. And in the third act, we solve the crime. During the second intermission everyone writes down who did it, how they did and why – like a game of Clue. A prize pack is given away, selected randomly from the correct guesses.

Before the show and in the intermissions you get a three-course meal of soup, a fried chicken plate with fixin’s and a dessert. There’s a bar, a gift shop and that’s really about it. Compared to Dolly’s show palaces or Paula Deen’s house of wood choppin,’ it’s pretty low rent.

What about the shows?

Right now, there are four shows in the rotation with different plots, but with the same basic structure. It’s all very based in the British farce tradition, the performances are big – and loud, the room wasn’t built for acoustics. The actors pour their energy into their roles and at first I found it a little hard to get into. But I would say that was as much about me as it was the performance. An old Gen Xer, my default position is skepticism and I have to be won over.

None of the big shows have every fully won me over. But the Murder Mystery did. There were three factors that did it. The energy of the actors and their performance was engaging and melted my old Grinchy heart. The script is funnier, but gives the actors some freedom to react to what’s happening in the room and it gives the whole thing life that you don’t find in the larger dinner theaters.

Finally, the other guests were really into it. There are built in audience interactions where guests are given scripts and small parts to play and that can be fun watching the amateurs play along. But there’s also a participatory element in the room. We had one table that was having a wonderful time, reacting big and even talking to the actors during the show. I could see how this could go wrong quickly, like a heckler at comedy show, but these guests were fun and funny and the actors did an excellent job of letting them in and incorporating them into the show.

It gave the whole thing a fresh and free feeling that stands polar opposite to the big shows where even the audience participation feels pretty safely packaged. There was a bit of tight rope walking required at the Murder Mystery Theatre that had to be appreciated.

How was the meal?

Bland. Not great, but not worse than what they serve at the bigger dinner theaters. The best parts were the soup and dessert. I don’t know what it is with dinner theaters and soups, do you reckon they use all their spices on the soup? We had a fried chicken breast, mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. In a town with great dining options, I would have much rather ate before or after the show and just enjoyed the show with a refreshing beverage.

The only thing I can figure is the meal is the place where they shows are making the money. They do offer some vegetarian, vegan, gluten free and dairy-free options.

How was the overall experience?

I, eventually, liked it. A lot. Like I said, it’s hard to be so near to people having so much fun and not get sucked into the experience. Maybe that’s the idea that I’ve been dancing around a little bit. The performers at the other shows are quite talented. And the shows in and of themselves are good. But it’s all a little monotonous. It doesn’t seem like they’re really having fun.

At the Murder Mystery Show, the crowd interaction kept it fresh and the actors seemed to be enjoying it as much as we are. It just felt more real.

We did have a couple of children in the group who seemed to enjoy the show as well. That said, I’m not sure they got all the “Dukes of Hazard” references. My overall grade was probably an A- or B+. Without the meal, I would have bumped it up to an A.

The cost for the meal is basically $60 for adults (13 and over) and $32 for children 4 to 12, at the time of this writing. To visit the website, click here. The address for the theater is 2682 Teaster Ln. in Pigeon Forge.

Have you visited this venue? What did you think? Let us know in the comments and on the socials!