What does it take to make live theater not just survive — but thrive? In this episode, we sit down with Mark Seven, Owner, Producer, and Director of Get Away With Murder — a traveling improv mystery comedy dinner theatre based in Ohio that turns every audience member into a suspect.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• Why live entertainment venues are struggling to fill seats — and what smart operators are doing differently
• How Get Away With Murder works: think live-action Clue, where the audience participates as suspects, props, and all
• The role of immersive, interactive storytelling in creating "wow" moments that audiences talk about for weeks
• How the company pivoted during COVID-19 by producing vintage-style radio mystery programs on YouTube
• What the "graying of theater" means for the future of live entertainment — and why it matters now
• A behind-the-scenes look at two upcoming holiday productions: The Elf Who Knew Too Much and The Great Reindeer Hoax
• How guest curiosity and actor improvisation literally write the show — real stories from the stage

Get Away With Murder is a traveling dinner theatre company offering both public murder mystery shows and private party experiences across Ohio and beyond. In public shows, audience members are cast as suspects with props to wear. In private events, the host pre-assigns roles. No one in the audience knows who the killer is until the final arrest. This keeps every performance completely unpredictable.

The company also offers corporate events, fundraisers, and custom private parties. This makes it a versatile option for groups looking for a memorable, fully interactive entertainment experience.

1. What is a Get Away With Murder mystery dinner event?

A Get Away With Murder event is a highly interactive mystery dinner party where guests take on character roles, receive clues, and help solve a murder case. Mark Seven describes it as similar to being in a live-action Clue game, with audience members participating as suspects and helping to solve the mystery by the end of the night (04:37).

2. Where can I find upcoming Get Away With Murder show dates and locations?

You can view all upcoming shows and purchase tickets by visiting getawaywithmurder.com and clicking on the live events tab. There you’ll find links to events at venues like Spaghetti Warehouse in Akron and Toledo, as well as other partner locations (29:23).

3. Are Get Away With Murder shows suitable for all ages?

Yes, according to Mark Seven, the humor and content are timeless and intergenerational, making the events suitable for adults of all ages. The shows are designed to be inclusive and enjoyable for a broad audience (27:51).

4. How do I participate in the show as a guest?

When attending a public event, guests may be assigned character roles complete with simple costume pieces like hats or boas. Private party guests may receive their roles in advance and even come dressed as their characters if they wish (04:52).

Connect with Detective Mark Seven

www.MyKillerParty.com

www.GetAwayWithMurder.com

MrEParties@aol.com

Toll-Free: (888) MRE-PRTZ / (888) 673-7789

P.O. Box 2, Tallmadge, OH 44278

Find live events on Eventbrite — filter for Ohio, then search "Get Away With Murder dinner parties."

Have a topic suggestion or feedback? Leave us a voice message, email us at hello@lookingforwardourway.com, or find us on Bluesky and Facebook. Everything lives at lookingforwardourway.com.

Copyright 2026 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson

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Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle 270 Media® Podcast Consultants.

You can rely on the critics reviews, but the big thing you need is the audience reaction and their word of mouth. And so you have to have a wow moment in your show that makes them say, oh, wow, wasn't that cool? When? Or did you notice when? And they. So they're talking about it as they're leaving, when they go home, when they go to work the next day, and so forth. So that wow moment is what? It doesn't have to be expensive or explosive. It just has to be something that makes them say, oh, that was so cool.

We are looking forward our way from studio c in the 511 studios. That's in the brewery district just south of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Hi, this is Brett.

Audience. Have you ever attended a murder mystery dinner theater event? Well, hang on to your hats. We are in for some fun today.

Correct. Let's welcome our guest, Mark seven. He is the CEO, founder, director and all around trailblazer of the Getaway with Murder Mystery party organization. Thanks for joining us, Mark.

Thank you very much. Glad to meet you both.

Yeah. He's been the major force of Getaway with murder mystery programs for many years, focusing first in Chicago and now also in the Cleveland and Toledo areas. Mark's joining us today from Northern Ohio, Ohio. Let's start by hearing more about you, your background and how you became the face and voice of Get Away with Murder.

Well, I had been a performer with the company in the early 90s, and after about two and a half or three years, the owner was looking to get out of this. And so I made her an offer to buy it from her. And so I bought the show from her and put my own stamp on it and grew it. It was at the time when the Internet was just beginning and so we were able to use that to, to our advantage. And it's grown and grown and grown.

Mark, you were in Chicago at that time and then.

Yes, I was.

Came to Ohio. Okay. But it's.

Yes.

Okay. All right. So. So, you know, I have to admit there has not been many dinner theater programs in central Ohio during my lifetime. There have been a few venues appeared, but normally they were in and out of town pretty quickly. And here you are celebrating your 26th anniversary doing this program. So, you know, in today's world, everybody's talking about getting pizza while they're watching a movie at the big box theater groups. So why don't you tell us a little bit about, you know, how this all started and what does this type of event mean to theater overall?

Well, first of all, I Just wanted to correct you a little bit. We are celebrating our 28th anniversary.

Our 28th. Now, didn't you email me 26? It's 28. Good job.

Sorry about that.

That's okay.

So, yeah, Tuesday was our 28th anniversary on the 11th of July. And to answer your question, you're right, dinner theater. There was a dinner theater between Columbus and dayton in the mid-70s that I worked at, but they have largely gone away partly because of cost and just economics in general. Food quality sometimes was lacking.

Right.

So how we differ from that is we're trying to make it more of a dinner party, of a theme party, rather than a dinner theater. Because the concept of dinner theater is that, you know, you go to a place that's separate building, that is the dinner theater, and you eat a meal and then watch a show on a stage, a musical or comedy. And what we do is more transportable. We can go to restaurants, banquet halls. We're not in a theater setting. And so it's not really a theater. We're trying not to promote dinner theater. It's mystery dinner party.

It sounds like it's much more interactive too.

Yes, yes. Because you're not just watching a program. It's much like being in a live action clue game where we. We invite the audience to participate by playing suspects. Now, if this show is open to the public, where they're buying a ticket to one of our events that we sponsor, then they will be asked to play a role as they come in, and we'll have maybe a hat or a boa or a vest or an apron or something to add to their character to wear along with their sheet of paper that describes who they are and what their clues are and so forth. If it's a private party that we're doing, we would send that material to the host or. Or the coordinator ahead of time, and they would pre assign those roles to people in their organization and they would come prepared. And if you want to, if they want to come dressed up in that character's outfit, then it's up to them.

They can do that themselves, but it is very interactive. And then one of them is the killer, but they never know which one it is. Like in the game, the board game, they don't know until the very end when we make the arrest.

You know, as I mentioned at the top of this, we have a mutual friend. So I think our next conversation with our mutual friend is to get her back here to Ohio and she and I come and join you in an

event that's on the agenda.

Okay, there you go.

So, as we all know, and we've done previous episodes about this, arts programs took a major hit during the pandemic. Would you tell us how you kept your company afloat? I mean, what changes did you make? What was successful, what maybe didn't work either? And have you been able to or needed to incorporate any of these changes into now, quote, unquote, normal times?

That's a great question, Brett. Thank you. We were shut down briefly, as was everyone. But the advantage that we had over and above any other theater was that we didn't have the theater building as I described just a moment ago. We had residencies in the Spaghetti Warehouse restaurant in Toledo and in Akron. And when those were able to reopen, they wanted us to come back to do our murder mysteries in their banquet rooms. And so we found a way to have shields, clear face shield, so that people could see our lips moving and get the facial expressions. And it didn't muffle our voices.

They weren't as quite as, quote, unquote, safe as the regular face mask. But we distanced ourselves from the audience, which was seated at separate tables, so each reservation had their own table, and we were distanced from each other. And that helped a lot. We also created a new format in a mystery game show so that the three actors were seated behind, like, jazz booths. And they would each claim not to be the killer in this story. And the host then would moderate the audience, which was split into three teams, like in Wheel of Fortune, red, yellow, and blue teams. And they would question the suspects about where they were and how do they know each other and what happened when and based on the story that they had in front of them. And then they would all vote eventually as to which one they thought was the killer and which one was not telling the truth, because they all claimed to not be the killer.

And then they would. The host would say, would the real killer please stand up? And they would do that bouncy thing and give the anticipation. And then they would tell, it's scary

because I can remember those old shows.

And the other two would tell why they aren't the killer. And then the real killer would say why he or she is the killer and why she's glad they did it. And then we'd have intermission with dessert. And then they would do show number two. And so it was a nice full evening. And that we've answered to your question, Brett, about how to incorporate that into current things. We have used that to sell to private clients for something different for. They have a large enough group that we can get a nice size of audience to do that.

We did that recently for a fundraiser for a community theater program and did it in their auditorium.

That sounds like fun. Yeah.

As a fundraiser. Yeah. So that's how we've incorporated that. Plus we also, in the Pandemic, kept our actors busy by creating recreating vintage radio mystery programs like Sherlock Holmes or Lights Out, Dick Tracy, the Thin man, and different of those. Even Dragnet started out as a radio mystery program. And we recreated those with the sound effects, the music, some commercials, and we put those out on YouTube and even though they weren't visual, we were able to put them on Spotify and some other platforms that people could listen to them just like the Old Time Radio listeners did.

I gotta applaud you. If you guys dig into Lights out, that's gold. Oh, that's golden stuff, man. That's good stuff.

Yeah,

there you go. And so Those are. Those YouTube programs are still out there. Right. If people are still interested, they can check it out.

Yes, yes. There's. There's, I think one or two Sherlock Holmes that are their actual videos that they. They were videotaped that they can see. And they're under the name the new Old Time Radio Show.

Great. We will listeners, we will make those links available on our show notes for this podcast program. So it'll be worth taking a look. And if you need some easy entertainment, you are not only the director of an arts program, but also a business owner. Are there lessons that you can share with us that will help individuals who are doing things like what you're doing as a director and as an owner of a company?

I think that the real. They're not getting the attendance and they're having trouble marketing to their regular customers. They may be afraid to come out. They're maybe older. And so they're afraid to come out and gather with people in a. In a public setting still. And so there's lots of. I think there are new requirements that owners, business owners of theaters and entertainment in general need to reconsider as to how they're going to attract new people to their venue as well as giving a comfort zone to traditional patrons to their establishment.

And so when I say being open to. Yes. Just, you know, have conversations with your staff, your board of directors or however your business is set up and come up with ways that could work and be open to the possibilities rather than saying, oh, no, that's never going to work. You never know.

Right.

And that's show business is a lot about, you know, playing darts or throwing spaghetti on the wall.

Right, right. And, you know, that's really good advice for literally any nonprofit, not just somebody who owns a business who should already be sort of ingrained in that notion of always say yes. But nonprofits have really been hurt during the pandemic, and many have closed or they are still struggling. They. And they are inundated with people in need. So the arts organizations are sort of on the flip side. People don't necessarily need an arts organization. So your message to them is, this will be good for you.

Absolutely. I've read an article, and this actually was prior to the pandemic, but it's still good today. And the author of this industry magazine article was about the graying of theater in general and how to attract audiences. And he said, you can rely on the critics reviews, but the big thing you need is the audience reaction and their word of mouth. And so you have to have a wow moment in your show that makes them say, oh, wow, wasn't that cool? When. Or did you notice when? And they. So they're talking about it as they're leaving, when they go home, when they go to work, the next and so forth. So that wow moment is what? And it doesn't have to be expensive or explosive.

It just has to be something that makes them say, oh, that was so

cool, and something that's enough of a wow to make them push the button on their social media, on their phone and send it out and buy a ticket. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, you've got a lot of themes for your shows. Can you give us an overview of. Of those themes and what's been most successful and how do you create the new shows? Is that input from actors or you get some input from audience as well?

Yes. Yes. Yes, indeed. Yes.

Yes. Which I figured was the answer because those are the best sources of just. You never know those ideas coming from left field, an audience member or whatever going, that's a great idea. We're all creative.

We have about 30 different themes right now. They're divided up into two groups. One is historical and one is contemporary. And in the contemporary, we do have a future outer space mystery, which is kind of fun. We also have some holiday themes in addition to that, and that's not counting the game show themes. But our traditional mysteries are divided into historical and contemporary. And the ones that are the most popular are the historical ones. We've got everything from pirates to the Old west to the gangsters up through the 1950s and a James Bond spoof from the 69, 70 psychedelic era.

And those are fun because people like to dress up for those. And so they're just, they're very popular. And we have had people that have audience who has inspired us. There's one classic example where we had. We were doing our roaring twenties gangster mystery at Michael Jordan's restaurant in downtown Chicago around the 4th of July one year. And it was about the, the murder of a gangster. And his mother was part of the story, along with his sister and younger brother, but his father was not mentioned in the story at all. And so during dinner, I'm sitting across from a guest and she says to me, well, what happened to Papa Buca? And I'm trying to stay in character and you know, it's like being at one of those history museums, you know, and.

And I said, well, Papa Buka isn't part of story, but what happened to him? She was so insistent and I kept, you know, trying to divert the answer. And finally I said, well, he's dead. And she said, well, how did he die? I'm like, oh my gosh. And so I went home and wrote a story about how Papa Buca died.

There you go. Oh my God.

And then one of my actresses called me up as I was writing this and we had a character in that show whose name was Mona Lisa Marinara. And so this actress called me up and she said, mark, my husband and I are sitting here at Red Lobster and there's an item on the menu that you have to use in your new mystery. And I said, what's that? She said, it's Muscles Marinara. And I said, oh, that's Mona Lisa's father,

Muscles Marin.

All right,

that's not a gangster name. I don't know what is.

Don't, don't let, don't let Red Lobster know. Cuz they're going to want to, want to, you know, a cut of the profits here.

So that's how, that's how we get some of our ideas. You just never know. And from restaurant menus.

There you go.

It works. It works. Oh, that's. That is wonderful. Okay, so you've got a new theme. You're ready to prepare for a show. Where do you find your actors, the sets, the costumes? You're the script writer, I think. But you know, the publicity and marketing pass.

What have you found to be successful?

Oh, the costumes were something that I added when, after I bought the company. That was just something I felt that would, as an actor in the company, prior to my purchase when we were doing large parties, say, you know, 50 to 100 people or more, it was a little bit frustrating for us. And as for the guests to know where a certain suspect was in the room to have them go ask a question. And I thought, you know, what if they had a hat or a, or a judge's robe or an apron or a feather boa, you can just say, oh, talk to that lady in the corner with a black hat on. And so I just, so it just kind of grew from that. And I just got a few items here and there and going to thrift shops and yard sales and, and that kind of thing. And then later on I started getting into some vintage stuff and buying stuff online and, or maybe going to a costume shop who was having a sale. The theater company was having a sale of their old stuff.

And so I would buy things that were cheap on the dollar and maybe fix them up or clean them up and use them. So that's how the, what we do with the costumes and we just. For publicity, we've just used, We've just grown with the times. You know, we've gotten to. We're suddenly doing a contest using Facebook and Instagram posting, and if you post a picture and like us, then you're entered into a contest to get a free ticket. So we're just growing, you know, as everyone changes with their adaptations in their phones, you know, take a picture of us, share it with you on your Facebook page so that we can get more publicity and get those algorithms moving. So we are trying to, you know, Adapt into the 21st century and use all the tools that are available.

People that you work with on a regular basis or their folks in and out. Or are you looking for new people?

Well, occasionally people do transition out. We just had one gal who moved to New York and sometimes people retire and move away, which means we do, yes, use older actors. We're not all, you know, 20 somethings, but by and large we do have a roster of people who are not dedicated but are familiar with our format and know what the jokes are and know what to, how to make it work.

Wonderful.

And so we call on them. We have a casting director who will, when he gets new dates from a new customer or we publish our sponsored events, he'll contact them and say who's available in November for these dates and who's available. And you know, and then based on his response, he'll cast them and send them contracts because they're contracted per show, per event.

Okay, so we are Going to take a sneak peek at what is going to be happening soon with your theater program. So if we saw a trailer and it had all of your upcoming shows for the end of 23 and into 24, what would we be seeing in that trailer?

You would be seeing some very fun shows coming up. We are doing a show called the Case of the Spooky Seance, which is about a psychic who was unable to predict her own murder at the end of November.

And what was the name of that again?

The Case of the Spooky Seance. We recreate the seance because people love that kind of stuff. We recreate the seance that preceded her demise, and we tried to contact her to tell us who was that that did her in. And so that's going to be toward the end of November, around a Thanksgiving weekend, actually.

Okay.

And then we're going to be doing the Case of the. The murderer of Scrooge is called A Christmas Carol Shadow. Oh. So Scrooge was murdered the day after he was turned into this wonderful, generous human being. And why would anyone want to kill him now? Well, there's a whole village of people who are still harboring, you know, ill feelings toward the old lizard.

Isn't that Boxing day then, too? 26 December? Isn't that boxing Day? Did somebody beat him to death?

I believe it is. And we're also the elf who Knew Too Much, which is a spoof on the Jimmy Stewart thing about the man who knew this elf was the Viagra connection at the North Pole. If you just want to think about an elf needing Viagra, that's just pretty funny in itself. And we have Santa and Mrs. Claus as characters suspects in the mystery, along with a few elves and all the reindeer. And Rudolph, who is the recovering alcoholic. So that's why he has the red nose.

Red nose. There you go. Yeah, yeah.

And. And we also are doing the Great Reindeer Hoax. Oh. Which is a spoof on the song Grandma Got Worn over by a reindeer.

There you go.

It wasn't a reindeer. There were some skis that were found in the chimney. Oh, and there were two Santa hats that were found. So somebody else was playing Santa. So we. But we use clues from the song, and many of the clues are in rhyme, so they could be sung to a Christmas Carol or a children's nursery rhyme song. And so the songs are very. And it's about Grandma's chocolate factory.

Oh, my gosh. Chocolate's bigger Christmas.

I was just gonna say that's a complicated event.

It's really? We had an actor one year who was playing the. A family member in this story who was a chocoholic. And generally that role is given to a guest to play. But it was a large event and so we added a few professional actors in and he played this character and he sat down to dinner and he had the salad in front of him and he pulled out a bottle of Hershey's syrup and squeezed it on his salad and he ate it. Because he was a chocoholic. I thought, that's dedication, man.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Oh my God.

He was a hit at the party. I want you to know. I'll bet, I bet.

Goodness. Sounds like 23 is going to go out with a bang in the theater.

That's what's coming up.

Nice. Well, you've expanded into various locations in northern Ohio and still have some programs in Chicago. You come in a little bit further south in the state.

Well, I would love to get into Columbus, especially with the new business coming in with the intel chip site. And I think there's just going to be tons and tons of business and new employees coming to work in Columbus. And so I think the time is ripe for getting us into Columbus.

Well, and you know, Columbus population is really the youngest in the state. There are many more younger people in Columbus because of the university. Yeah. So, you know, as you said, when you're looking at expanding that audience in terms of the age and background of audience members, you know, Columbus could really be ripe for this. Young folks love to be entertained.

They do. Absolutely. And the humor that we have is timeless. It's intergenerational. It's not about the newest thing, the fad, you know, the in pop culture stuff. It's just general old fashioned humor that I grew up with. And so it's still timeless and it's good for all age groups. We've actually done a few parties in.

I think we've done one in Cincinnati. We've done a couple in the Mansfield area and we were in Springfield, I think, once or twice.

There you go. You're circling around central Ohio. You haven't quite got here. So audience, if you want to see Mark, let him know that you're here in central Ohio and to come and visit us.

We travel anywhere because we've actually traveled all over the country to Seattle, Lake Tahoe, Boston, Florida. We've gone Michigan. We've gone everywhere.

Very cool.

Nice, nice. Well, if a member of our audience wanted to see a production, where can they find your show schedule, suggestions on travel and accommodations. I mean, for us, if we're looking at central Ohio, well, anywhere that you're not based per se, it's going to take a little bit of travel, maybe some accommodations. What's the best way to put that together so they can make it a nice trip where you are, where the performance is, and then, you know, know that they're back home in time for the next thing?

Well, we have, our website has all our listings of our shows. We have the ones that we've sponsored. And a lot of times we will put links to other shows that are private customers of ours who are selling tickets. And so if you could just get to our website, which is getawaywithmurder.com, not how to just getaway with murder.com and, and go down to live and click on the tab that says live events, and it will take you to the Spaghetti Warehouse in Akron and in Toledo, and you can click on those sites and order tickets there. Or you can click on maybe the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad or the Blue Teak Hotel or the Music Box Supper Club and order your tickets directly through that link.

Okay, great. And again, audience, we'll have all of this information on our show notes so you can get in touch with Mark and also check out the schedule of events. So that would be wonderful. So, you know, Mark, we always ask our guests if they have any last words of wisdom, and it seems like podcasts just fly by. We're done talking to our guests in literally seconds, I think. But what suggestions do you have for our listeners today?

If you want to laugh and have a good time, come and see our shows. That's it. That's our motto. Our focus is on the audience, not on ourselves. A lot of our competition seems to focus on showcasing their own talents, and we focus on the audience instead because we find that our audiences are the reason why we're continuing for 28 years. And so my word of advice is to don't give up on whatever is frustrating your day. Make a plan and see one of our shows, and you'll find that life can be really fun.

Listeners, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to check out the show notes on the website for contact information for Mark and the Getaway with Murder shows. You can find that information on our website at looking forward our way.com we look forward to hearing from you, your feedback on this episode and any of our other podcast episodes.