MIDWEST — Was it Mrs. Peacock with the dagger in the conservatory? Was it Mr. Green with the rope in the lounge? Was it Professor Plum in the ballroom with a candlestick?
John Treacy Egan is more than familiar with those questions. He grew up playing the iconic board game Clue. So when he found out a childhood favorite was being turned into a comedy murder mystery play, he wanted to be a part of it.
Plus, he said, the show’s director, Casey Hushion, had a wonderful reputation in the industry. Hushion has worked on projects such as “Aladdin,” “The Prom,” “Mean Girls” and “In the Heights.”
Egan landed the role of Colonel Mustard in 2020 when the show premiered at the Cleveland Play House in Ohio. He reprised the role in a second production of “Clue” in New Jersey at the Paper Mill Playhouse in 2022.
“That’s where this production was designed and built from,” Egan said. “Some of the actors who I’ve worked with before have been in this [company before] and some of them are new. So building it, when we were building it in Cleveland, was interesting. We were given this script and the script was in transition when we were working on it. So lines came and lines left as our writer and director decided where the play should be going.”
Egan said he based Colonel Mustard off an actor he knows, describing him as “very broad and big,” and, above all, “committed.”
He has the military-esq costume to match Mustard’s personality. And while his attire has yellow tones, he’s certainly not wearing anything that would rival a traffic light.
He explained that each character’s costume has a touch of their color, they’re not dawning bright primary colors. However, they reflect the colors and characters so they’re easily recognizable and comparable to the board game.
The actors on stage aren’t the only ones in costume. Egan said a lot of audience members will come dressed up as their favorite “Clue” character. While it’s not required, he said it makes the show a lot of fun for everyone involved.
“It has a ‘Rocky Horror’ vibe to it a little bit. People know it so well and they want to come and be a part of it. Now of course there’s no calling out or anything like that like you would in ‘Rocky Horror.’ But the fans are there and when audiences come, it’s kind of fun to see people in the audience dressed like the characters on stage,” Egan said.
Egan said that those fans of “Clue” should expect to see something similar to the movie they know and love, but it’s not exactly the same.
“The best thing is it really does speak to the ‘Clue’ fans. So if you’re a fan of the game, you grew up playing the game or if you’re a fan of the movie, it’s very close to the movie in a lot of the performance aspects of lines, famous lines, and things like that. It is just a laugh riot,” Egan said. “It is 85-90 minutes of just funny and crazy and spinning out of control as more victims keep falling through the Boddy Manor throughout the performance. It’s a lot of laughs … You don’t have to know ‘Clue’ to come in but you have a really good time.”
One difference for those who saw the movie when it hit theaters in 1985: Every audience will see the same production, so there’s no need to worry about missing out on alternate endings.
“Without giving anything away, I think everybody is satisfied with the ending because they get a lot of what they know and they get a lot of surprises,” Egan said.
In fact, the ending is Egan’s favorite part of the entire production.
“I like the very very end of the show. There’s a confrontation at the end and I think that’s one of my favorite things about the show. I’m an observer at that moment, but it’s very funny,” he said.
“Clue” runs in Louisville, Ky., at The Kentucky Center from March 5 to 10. It then heads to Milwaukee’s Marcus Performing Arts Center from March 12 to 17. It stays in Wisconsin for an Appleton run at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center from March 19 to 24. Later this spring, “Clue” heads to Ohio, with stops at the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Ohio from April 9 to 14, Playhouse Square’s E. J. Thomas Hall in Akron, Ohio and the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati, Ohio from May 14 to 19.
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