Arcane Parlor: Seances & Murder Mystery

HOW EACH SHOW WORKS, AND WHAT YOU NEED TO HOST IT

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THE SEANCE COLLECTION
8 to 25 guests. 60 to 90 minutes. Ages 16+.
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Guests sit around one table with the lights down. Pick the story:

THE HAUNTING OF GURNSEY HOLLOW -- A western New York legend from the 1850s. A girl on the edge of a small town, a town that decided what she was, and a story that never quite finished. The most elaborate of the three.

SPIRITS OF THE TITANIC -- April 1912, told through what was really aboard: the band, the wireless operators, the first-class dinner menus, the passengers whose names you already know. A Victorian parlor evening built around the most famous voyage in history. Atmospheric, not solemn -- this one is a good time.

OPERATION SANGUINUM -- A Victorian vampire-hunting kit, a military surgeon's diary, and the question of what those kits were actually built for. Real history first, then something considerably stranger.

A CUSTOM SEANCE -- Some hosts want the evening built around their own house, family, town or anniversary. That takes 6 to 8 weeks of research and writing before the night. Ask me early.

Setup: 60 to 90 minutes for the full staging. I have in-home versions that set up in about 10.
Room: anywhere 8 to 25 people can sit around a table and the lights can come down.
Power: one outlet.
Bigger group? I can run two or three shorter sittings across the evening.

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MURDER BY MAGIC
10 to 300 guests. 60 to 90 minutes. Ages 16+.
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Your guests think they are getting a magic show. The entertainer never arrives, because he has been murdered, and somebody in the room did it. From there the whole group works out who, and every clue comes out of a piece of magic or mind reading.

Two guests demonstrate proper handcuffing technique, with results that go wrong in the best possible way. One guest turns out to be able to name the time of death. The chief of police -- also one of your guests -- decodes what the killer left behind. I get blindfolded with black duct tape while guests draw what they saw. And a guest, not me, finally names the murderer. Then the twist.

What it is not: nobody is assigned a character, nobody is handed a script, nobody memorizes anything. I have never met any of your guests. Nothing is prearranged.

Setup: 30 to 40 minutes. The living-room version sets up in about 10.
Room: works in a living room at 10 guests or a banquet hall at 300.
Sound: I bring my own PA and microphone for larger groups. Everyone sees and hears everything.
Power: one outlet.

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THE PRACTICAL ANSWERS
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TRAVEL -- Based in Niagara Falls, NY. Most private bookings are western New York. I regularly travel New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Connecticut and Massachusetts, and I have performed in 39 states. If the date and the event are right, ask about anywhere.

AGES -- These are adult and mature-teen programs, not appropriate under 16. I run a separate business doing elementary school assemblies and library shows; that is a different listing.

FUNDRAISERS -- Yes. Ask me.

GRIEF WORK -- If someone is hoping to reach a specific person they have lost, I will say no and tell you why. This is theatre, and I am careful about that line.

PRICING -- The fee depends on which show, how many guests, and how far I am traveling. Send me the date, the town and a rough head count and I will get you a number the same day.

THE GUARANTEE -- If your guests are not thrilled, you do not pay. More than 20 years, and nobody has ever taken me up on it.

I am Cris Johnson. I have been a full-time professional entertainer for more than 20 years. Not a weekend hobby, not a side business -- it is the job. Somewhere north of 200 shows a year, in 39 states.

That whole career has been built on one idea: the best party entertainment is not something guests watch. It is something they end up inside of.

Murder By Magic came out of that. I have been performing it for corporate events, banquets and private parties for close to 20 years, and it still sells itself on a single line -- a murder mystery where the clues come out of magic instead of a script. It has never needed a troupe of actors, and your guests have never needed a rehearsal.

The Seance Collection is the more personal work. I have spent years in Victorian seance material, sideshow history, and the genuinely strange documented record of the spiritualist movement: the Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York, the carnival "vampire hunting kits" that were sold as real, the parlor evenings that people in 1912 took entirely seriously. The shows are built out of that history. I make no claims about what is real. I will only tell you that your guests will still be arguing about it in the car.

I bring everything I need, including sound. In two decades I have never once needed a host to solve a problem for me on the day of a show.

Based in Niagara Falls, New York.