Murder’s in the Heir opened Thursday, October 18, making it the first of two CRTC productions for this school year, as well as the first production to be overseen by Cinco’s new theater director, Donald Wile. Alongside co-director Meaghan Cybulski, Wile now oversees crew production.

“The premiere went really well,” Cybulski said. “We weren’t rushing to do last minute things, I think this was the most prepared we’ve been since I’ve been here. Mr. Wile, our new technical director, added to that and helped make sure we were prepared as well as we were. He’s very professional. He has a lot of experience, so he likes to bring that professionalism into his work.”

Cast and crew alike prepared for the opening of “Murder’s in the Heir” with nearly 10 weeks of rehearsal. The unique play encourages audience participation, letting it’s viewers choose for themselves who they think is the murderer.

“Technically each character has the same monologue that they do at the very end of the show and each actors ending is a different take on how their character would kill somebody,” Caitlin Judkins, who played the role of Lois Van Zundt, said. “It’s pretty interesting because at least eight people have all held me at gunpoint at some point. It definitely took more rehearsal time though.”

Judkins agrees that Wile’s experience was a big influence on the success of “Murder’s in the Heir”, and that his professionalism will continue to be a driving force of CRTC throughout the year.

“Wile and Cybulski are very different,” Judkins said. “He’s definitely more of a backstage person but creatively he has a huge idea of things. I think he’s used to having the small budgets, so now because our school has pretty well-known arts program he has a bigger budget. Next time he’ll get to just pick it up and do it.”

After four successful showings of their quirky whodunit, Murder’s in the Heir, CRTC is ready to embrace the same whimsical feel for their production of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” next semester.

“In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe you’ll see some of the same characters, the four kids, Aslan, the white witch,” Cybulski said. “But then you’ll also see some new characters that you really didn’t see in the book version, because the transition from book to stage is a little unique. You don’t have a narrator reading the story to you, so we tell the story through new characters, like a unicorn. It’s the same storyline that you might be familiar with from the books or even the movies, just with some new characters.”

“The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” opens the last weekend of January 2019, but for the members of CRTC, work starts as soon as two weeks from now. Auditions for the show begin almost immediately after the set of “Murder’s in the Heir” has been taken down.

“The company tries really hard in a million different ways to put on the best show possible,” Judkins said. “Especially with such a huge performance that involves all these magical and mystical things, I don’t think the next show is going to be an exception.”