The Play That Goes Wrong

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

Someone left the body where the butler can trip over it, the lead actress keeps forgetting her lines, and the grandfather clock just fell through the wall. Again.

The Play That Goes Wrong brings a double puzzle to the Spencer Theatre. On one level, audiences follow the genteel whodunit The Murder at Haversham Manor, a 1920s drawing-room mystery that promises all the usual suspects and red herrings. On another, you watch the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society lose their grip on that very production as an unstable set refuses to cooperate and the supposed victim keeps missing his cue to stay lifeless. Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, this physical comedy thrives on the gap between what these amateur performers imagine and what actually happens under the lights.

The pleasure lies in watching dignity collapse. A murder mystery depends on control—cool detectives, careful alibis, parlor conversations where every word counts. Here, furniture betrays its handlers, props vanish and reappear in the wrong hands, and the evening's decorum crumbles scene by scene. Yet the Cornley troupe soldiers on, determined to rescue a performance spiraling further into chaos with every entrance.

Stuart Carden directs Kansas City Repertory Theatre's production, where mishap piles on mishap and the harder these characters try to salvage their show, the more gloriously it unravels. Secure your ticket for a comedy built on colliding ambitions.