The Play That Goes Wrong

The Play That Goes Wrong at Spencer Theatre At Kansas City Repertory Theatre

You're watching a murder mystery, and you're also watching it spectacularly fall apart. At the Spencer Theatre, The Play That Goes Wrong delivers a double dose of entertainment: both the fictional 1920s whodunit The Murder at Haversham Manor and the glorious catastrophe unfolding around it. Kansas City Repertory Theatre brings this physical comedy to life, where every carefully planned detail becomes wonderfully unplanned.

The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society means well. Their amateur performers genuinely want to pull off an elegant period mystery, complete with dignified drawing rooms and clever clues. What they get instead: an unstable set, furniture that won't cooperate, lines that vanish from memory, and a murder victim who simply won't stay dead. Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, the script layers mishap upon mishap while the determined cast soldiers on.

That determination is half the pleasure. These aren't professionals slumming through comedy—they're characters fighting to salvage their beloved production, and their earnest efforts make every disaster funnier. The supposed sophistication of a manor-house mystery collides with missed cues and collapsing scenery, creating a contrast that never stops paying off.

Stuart Carden directs this Kansas City production, orchestrating the chaos that makes The Play That Goes Wrong work. It's a comedy built on watching people try very, very hard while absolutely everything goes wrong.

Grab your tickets for a night of theatrical wreckage done right.