Thanks to COVID, Lexington theater’s show has record-breaking run, that’s still going

When “Bloody Murder” closes at Studio Players on Sept. 26, it will be the longest-running show in the Lexington community theater’s history.

Closing afternoon will mark 18 months, 14 days on the Studio Players stage for the Ed Sala murder mystery satire, but that fact doesn’t come close to telling the whole story of this show and the unique place it will take in the lives of the actors and crew involved in it.

They began rehearsals for the show in January 2020. By all accounts, it was a cast that clicked and enjoyed each other’s company, putting together a comedy that sent up one of the theater’s most reliable genres: the British parlor murder mystery popularized by novelist Agatha Christie, whose portrait on the set has watched over the stage now for nearly 18 months.

Opening night was March 12, 2020. There is a little disagreement among the cast as to how prepared they were for what happened that night. Some wondered if the show would happen at all, as closures and cancellations due to the coronavirus pandemic were in full gear. It was the same day the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments and the men’s SEC tournament were canceled.

“At first we were really excited because, ‘Oh, we’re going to do this, and … we’re gonna still do this and power ahead,” said Stephanie Gillham, who plays three characters in the show. “And then we got word that everything was going to be shut down.

“So, it was like a really triumphant opening night, and then, by the way, you’re opening and closing on the same night.”

Studio Players shows usually run for 10 performances over three weekends.

“We didn’t know what was going on,” said Dane Hosler, who plays the Major. “Everything kind of fell like dominoes.”

“All of a sudden, dead stop,” Brett Ervin, who plays Tremaine, said. “We’re done after opening night?” He added that the opening-night reception, “was more like a wake.”

But the set was not struck. Nothing was coming in after “Bloody Murder,” at that point. Director Gary McCormick says the plan all along was to complete the run of the show. First they were thinking May 2020. Then September. Then, maybe the spring of this year. Every time, fresh surges of the virus kept pushing things back.

Studio did a few virtual productions during the pandemic. Actors in “Bloody Murder” recall watching the theater’s 10-minute play festival thinking, “that’s our set.”

In June, with most measures of the pandemic at their lowest points since Spring 2020, the theater’s board of directors decided to go on with “Bloody Murder” as the 2021-22 season opener.

“We started August 15, so we had a little less than four weeks to prepare,” McCormick said. “Since the cast is the same cast, same great stage manager, and the set’s in place, we’ve picked up fairly quickly. And so, it’s been really great because we get to polish moments of the show to make them better than perhaps they were before. And the actors, I think, have a lot more nuances about their characters and about their relationships. I think it’s made for a richer show.”

Coming back, Ervin said, “Pretty much all the props, everything, the costumes, were where we left them, how we hung them up upstairs. Nobody touched them. It was like a museum.”

One thing the audience will notice is the theater is distributing the original programs for the show with the March 12-29, 2020 dates.

“We’ve had that feeling of you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” said Tabitha Kittle, who plays two characters. “And then we had that year and a half of it’s gone, and we haven’t had it, and we got back and we’re like, ‘Oh, right. This is what it’s supposed to feel like. This is where we’re supposed to be, right now.”

Right now though, the virus is surging again, setting records in Kentucky for infections and hospitalizations. At this point though, the plan is for the show to go on.

McCormick said that the theater is following all safety protocols, including only selling to 70% of capacity so parties can be spaced out and asking everyone except the actors on stage to wear masks while in the theater. It is just another way the pandemic will color this production.

“It wasn’t a surprise, but that still doesn’t mean it’s not disappointing when you become so emotionally attached to a show,” Alice Jones, who plays Lady Somerset, says of the delay in the show. “That’s just the cycle of the show. You build up to opening night. But then there’s never been the kind of arc through the run of the play, and then the close and the strike.

“Hopefully, we get to do at this time.”

‘Bloody Murder’

What: Studio Players’ production of Ed Sala’s satirical play

When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays Sept. 9-12, 17-19, and 24-26.

Where: Carriage House Theatre, 154 W. Bell Court

Tickets: $21 general admission, $11 students; scfatickets.com, 859-257-4929

This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 6:00 AM.