Ankeny Theatre Production Pays Off With Twisted Murder Mystery

If you like a story with a lot of twists and an ending you never saw coming, the has just the story for you.

On Friday at 7:30 p.m., the theater will give its debut ,” a play written by Robert Cook. Director Harold Mosier said the play, which kicks off ACT’s 30^th season, is a murder mystery mixed with a bit of unintentional humor.

“The play is quite funny at times – no one intended it to be funny, but is,” Mosier said. “It’s tight suspense – people who can pick a mystery apart will not figure this one out.”

The cast of “Dead Giveaway” will hold performances each Friday, Saturday and Sunday through Oct. 16. Friday and Saturday performances start at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday shows are at 2 p.m.

“Dead Giveaway” is a play about five older women who live together. The group used to be sorority sisters at Liberty College. During their college years they had a housemother who was ahead of her time in the area of holistic medicine. The housemother died and included all five women in her estate.

The catch? Only the last woman alive will inherit the housemother’s wealth.

Mosier said there are many twists in the play, including a surprise daughter-in-law and a lawyer who somehow got himself written into the will of one of the women.

The cast, which consists of six women and one man, has been rehearsing for the past five weeks.

Susan Casber of Des Moines plays Fiona in “Dead Giveaway.” She said she’s in this play for the challenge. She also gets to act opposite her sister, Barb Wagner, who directed

“Her and I haven’t been on stage together since 2004,” Casber said. “We get to yell at each other and everything.”

Show-goers should really enjoy the relationship between the five women, Casber said.

“It’s kind of like the 'Golden Girls' gone wild,” Casber said with a laugh. “The story itself is suspenseful, too, and you don’t know what’s happening 'til the very end.”

Mosier called “Dead Giveaway” one of Cook’s better plays with a quality script, adding show-goers can expect all loose ends to be tied, as well as great acting.

“It’s Bill Cosby-style humor – people being people,” Mosier said. “(Cook) really gives you a great play.”