Murder most foul - and fun - in Coeur d’Alene

“Happily ever after” won’t help when there’s a murderer on the loose.

The typical fairy tale ending gets thrown by the wayside at Coeur d’Alene Murder Mystery Theatre’s “Fairy Tale Murder Show,” a murder mystery show just in time for Halloween.

As the plot goes, Fairytale Land is in a slump after the mysterious deaths of Grumpy, one of the Seven Dwarfs, and Pinocchio. Tourism and fairy tale book sales in the magical land have dropped, leading to a ruined economy and a decision from city council members to cancel the restoration of Snow White’s castle.

With things in such disarray, an emergency council meeting has been called. It’s up to the audience members, acting as council members, to watch scenes and mingle with the performers to figure out who is behind the deaths before things in Fairytale Land get even worse.

The show stars Renei Yarrow as the Evil Queen, Alyssa Hersey as Snow White, Diana Bailey as Red Riding Hood, Oskar Owens as Prince Charming, Mitch Shellman as the Big Bad Wolf and Kris Siebers as Rumpelstiltskin.

Tracey Vaughan, executive director of Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre, created Coeur d’Alene Murder Mystery Theatre with Brook Bassett after putting on a successful murder mystery show for a charity event while working as the drama teacher at Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy.

“It seemed to me something that could easily be done in this area that wasn’t really offered,” Vaughan said.

With three seasons under its belt, Coeur d’Alene Murder Mystery Theatre, which usually performs during the summer, is branching out into a fall performance with “Fairy Tale.”

Vaughan and Bassett loosely based the plot of the show on different murder mystery games they studied, though the pair wrote the script themselves.

“It’s a good outlet for actors because the roles are not serious,” Vaughan said. “They have to play them with truth and with belief, but they are exaggerated characters. It’s over-the-top, as most murder mysteries would be.”

Audience members can choose to interact with performers or simply observe them throughout the night.

Everyone will get the chance to ask the performers questions before voting on who they think committed the crimes.

Vaughan said the promise of a spontaneous, whodunit-filled evening gets audiences hooked on murder mystery shows.

“You don’t have any predictability of what’s going to happen, but at the same time, it’s a super safe environment,” she said. “And they also really like trying to sleuth it out. The whole concept of whodunit is figuring out a puzzle. It’s something that we all like to do on one level or another.”