(Bloomberg) -- On May 9 in the Fresh Meadows neighborhood of Queens, New York, Mister Boddy was found dead onstage at Francis Lewis High School. A chorus of gasps sounded off in the theater as the stage lights twinkled back on. His lifeless body lay there as six strange dinner party guests—each with a motive and a matching lethal weapon—went on to try and find the murderer.
Was it Mrs. Peacock wielding her dagger to keep the bribes taken on behalf of her senator husband a secret? Or was it Mrs. White, using a rope to hide a scandal involving her late husband (or last five late ex-husbands)? Perhaps it was Professor Plum, cocking his revolver to hide a shameful career as a shady ex-doctor?
Within minutes, giggles rippled across the crowd as one of the quick-witted characters poked fun at each other with a wry knowingness over the famous material.
Over the coming academic year, audiences across the country will whiplash between suspense and laughter during over 170 more performances in high schools thanks to the popularity of a script syndicated by Broadway Licensing Global.
Based on the 1985 Paramount movie, which derived from the classic Hasbro Inc. board game, the Clue stage adaptation has captured the ever-fleeting attention of Generation Z, a demographic born long after the film’s premiere. But for anyone who grew up with “Flames … flames!” on the side of their face, it’s no surprise new audiences are discovering the story’s charm.
Clue: On Stage (High School Edition) has been BLG’s most licensed play in high schools for the last four years, and it is set to extend that trend as the 2024-25 school year begins scheduled productions. The next two most popular BLG plays in the high school market are also comedies, The Play That Goes Wrong and Almost, Maine.
BLG says Clue’s high school iteration alone reliably generates deep six- and seven-figure revenue annually. That’s territory normally reserved for the popular musicals BLG represents, such as Ride the Cyclone or Jimmy Buffett’s Escape to Margaritaville. Though usually more profitable than plays, musicals often include required adjunct materials such as orchestrations. Clue as a package is less expensive than your typical musical.
At Francis Lewis, Clue is the first straight play Marci Contino has chosen in her two-decade career as drama director. She welcomed the deviation from her usual musical picks, as it meant a decrease in the demands of coordinating dance routines with the school’s orchestra.
But a bigger surprise was that, instead of drawing in the usual core theater kids for past productions such as Grease or In the Heights, Clue expanded the pool of interest. Almost 80 wide-eyed student-actors showed up to auditions, well above the 17 or so average in past years.
Contino attributes the rise in interest to the growing popularity of mystery and true crime in pop culture at large, with podcasts topping Apple charts, and movies like Knives Out and streaming hits such as Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, which stars Gen Z fave Selena Gomez. People just can’t get enough murder and deceit, “in addition to it being funny and not, like, a scary straight play,” Contino says.
The irony is that Clue never saw a Broadway stage prior to its licensing for the high school marketplace. Typically enthusiasm in the educational theater market builds from acclaim on the Great White Way, where something like Chicago draws national interest that trickles down to aspiration in the classroom.
Instead, BLG’s content development division, Stageworks Productions, worked alongside the theatrical production company Araca Group and Lively McCabe, a New Jersey-based firm that develops and acquires theater-native copyrights, to get insight directly from Hasbro in making a live adaptation. After an initial production in 2017, Stageworks fine-tuned the play to fit the educational marketplace in 2020.
The more adult version of the production is on a roughly 50-city national tour, wrapping up the Los Angeles stop at the Ahmanson Theatre on Aug. 25. The series will include a more than two-week run at the The Kennedy Center in Washington, followed by other productions in Charlotte, Tucson, Boise, Omaha and Atlanta, among others.
Michael Barra, chief executive officer of Lively McCabe, credits BLG’s relationship with thousands of schools and community theaters for building wider commercial success. Building buzz, excitement and a large volume of fans by bringing it to students first can have a profound effect on the demand and efforts for the pro tour.
“[People say,] ‘I saw that at my kids’ school,’ or ‘My nephew did that show,’ or ‘The small community theater in my town did it. I’m going to go into the city to watch the touring production.’ They seeded the ground,” Barra says. “They’ve built an audience for this show that I don’t think we would have had otherwise.”
There are a few things that Clue’s high school version does quite well: It captures the essence of the film in all its zany glory, and it does so in a family-friendly way. The show has toned down several adult innuendos from the movie that the students barely notice or understand. The parents, however, sit amused by the under-the-radar jokes, like when Miss Scarlet naughtily quips that lying on one’s back isn’t necessarily lazy.
“There’s something for everyone,” Contino says. “The older generation—the teachers, the parents—they’re getting those jokes. And the younger ones who are not getting it are getting the slapstick comedy. So it does transcend.”
Looking to challenge his students to embody a script with comedic flair, Seattle Preparatory School theater director Adam Othman is preparing to perform the play for the school’s fall production. “Clue works out perfectly with the cast,” he says of aspiring Madeline Kahns and Tim Currys, who starred in the original. “It allows for great ensemble acting and gives each student time to shine.”
As great as the show is for the audience and the actors, it’s equally as enjoyable for nonacting students and staff on the production side, as it requires thinking outside the black box. Craig Evans, theater director at New Jersey’s Blair Academy, chose Clue for its 2024 fall play after the academy’s technical director suggested it, saying he heard rave reviews from other schools. The tech director is already brainstorming ways to incorporate a turntable into the set design, Evans says, in an effort to accommodate all the different scenes that take place in various rooms at Boddy Mansion.
“It is a little challenging set-wise, but I’m excited that he’s excited to take on the challenge,” Evans says. “And the tech crew—he works with kids through the primary building, so that’s great that they can be challenged as well.”
Unlike the movie, however, BLG’s version doesn’t have alternate endings. So whodunit in the high school variation? No spoilers, but let’s just say nobody is getting away scot-free.
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