The Broadway Play Clue is Coming to Overture May 13-18: A Good Old-Fashioned Murder Mystery
Above: Christina Anthony as Miss Scarlett with the cast of Clue
Right: Christina Anthony as Miss Scarlett holding the candlestick.
Below: Christina Anthony
by Jonathan Gramling
Christina Anthony — who plays Miss Scarlett in the Broadway play Clue that is coming to the Overture Center — is having fun in a profession that it seemed she was always destined to excel in, even as a young child.
“Let my mother tell it, I was an actress the day I was born,” Anthony said with a laugh. “I just kind of grew up loving theater and television and the movies. I really have to give someone credit. I remember a high school theater teacher calling my mom. I had been in a play. And she said, ‘Christina could really do this professionally.’ I was probably 14-15-years-old at the time. I think I honestly held on to that for as long as I could. And now here I am decades later a full-time, working professional artist.’
While Anthony had a love for acting and theater, she also had a practical side. She studied psychology in college and was always prepared to have a non-theater day job to support herself while she pursued acting at night. And then a move to Chicago had a profound impact on her career.
“That is really where I got my start professionally,” Anthony said. “I was really fortunate. Chicago has been amazing black box theater scene. I worked there and then I was invited to do a workshop at a place called Second City. I had never heard of it. But obviously it is world famous. Many comedians go on to have huge television and movie careers. Many have been a part of Saturday Night Live. It was my first exposure to it. I learned the art of improv and sketch and how to write a joke and how to do political satire. There is where I really honed my voice, in Chicago.”
Anthony eventually made the jump to Los Angeles hoping that her career would take off from there. But she was forced to take a day job once agqain while she waited for her big break.
“I was very fortunate,” Anthony said. “Almost eight years after arriving in LA, I booked my first big TV show and became a regular on television every week on ABC in ‘Mixed-ish.’ That was such a wonderful experience because I hadn’t had much television experience. There wasn’t much television at the time when I was in Chicago. It was just so exciting, this art form that I really grew up idolizing and didn’t know how it worked at all. But I learned how to be on TV by being on TV. And I was just able to check another box off of my list of the type of entertainment that I wanted to conquer. I was excited to do that.”
And now Anthony is checking another box off of her Things to Perform In list, touring with a Broadway play. And she is loving the audience that she got a taste of performing before live audiences at times while filming TV shows.
“You can feel the audience,” Anthony exclaimed. “Even before we come out, I will be back stage kind of getting my props together and talking to the other cast members. And you can hear what the audience is feeling already before you start. You can hear some people mumbling. Some people, you can hear them buzzing excitedly. Maybe they are out there having a few cocktails. But they have their own rhythm and sound before you can come out. And that is so exciting. That’s something that rarely happens on television.”
Clue is based on the board game that has been around for decades that was the inspiration for Clue the Movie, which has since become a cult classic.
“It’s very much the same energy as The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” Anthony said. “I love it when people say the lines with us. And I love it even more when people show up dressed as their favorite character. I love seeing the little Miss Scarlets. I’ve seen some Mister Scarlets as well. I encourage your readers to come on out dressed up. At the Stage Door, we’d love to take your picture, and sign your program.”
Clue, the stage play, is very loyal to the movie.
“Jonathan Lynn wrote a film based on Clue the board game, Clue the Movie,” Anthony said. “It came out in the 1980s. It went on to become a cult classic. And Sandy Rustin, the writer of this particular play, adapted that film script. If you are familiar with the movie and you’ve seen it, it’s a pretty faithful adaptation. You really find a lot of the same jokes. And we’re told to act it word for word. So if you want to say it along with us, we’re pretty exact to the script. And then there are some more modern adjustments. Obviously there are some new things there. But for the most part, if you are a fan of the film, you are going to love this. And then if you are not familiar with the film and maybe you’ve only played the game, you’re going to recognize immediately the first characters out, Colonel Mustard, Mr. Green, Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet. You’ll see all of the characters from the board game itself.”
Clue takes place in an elegant mansion where all of the characters have been invited — and come because someone has been blackmailing them.
“Within the first 15 minutes, someone is murdered,” Anthony said. “And we all have to figure out who did it. It is Mister Body who gets murdered. He has invited all of these people to the mansion and within 10-15 minutes of telling them that he has been blackmailing them the whole time, the lights go out and he is murdered. Before they had the chance to confront him, they have to try to figure out who did it. And obviously now everyone has a reason because they were being blackmailed. The evening is spent trying to figure that out. That’s what happens in the film as well. And so just like in the game, each person at the end can take the chance to say, ‘It was this person with this weapon in this room.’ And the mansion is beautiful. It’s like nothing that I have ever worked with. Our set designer did a wonderful job. It really comes to life and there are different rooms you can go in and accuse people of the murder and you have to try to figure it out.”
And Anthony’s character, Miss Scarlett, is in the thick of the action.
“Miss Scarlet is a business woman,” Anthony said. “With my version of Miss Scarlet, she probably came from the Deep South and migrated to Washington, D.C. And she runs a business like anyone else. She’ll do anything to keep it going. I think she has a lot at stake. And when she was invited to the mansion — this is 1950s Washington, D.C. — someone is blackmailing her. And I don’t think she is going to take it lying down. She wants to confront them and she is not afraid. She shows up at the mansion and she maybe knows the other characters — the other residents in the mansion — and maybe she doesn’t. But I think she is there to confront the person who has been blackmailing her. And she is not afraid.”
While some of the movement may be choreographed, Anthony emphasizes that it is a play and not a musical. And it is an evening of murder and figuring out who done it.
“In the film, there were multiple people who said, ‘I was actually the killer,’” Anthony said. “’This is how I did it.’ To pay homage to it, we actually do it all in one night. You won’t have to come back multiple nights. Stay in your seat until the very end, sit back and rewind the tape, if you will and show the last two minutes again and show you a different version of who the killer was and how they did it. It all happens on one night. It is very cool.”
Anthony will be leaving Clue after the Overture run.
“My final curtain in the show is May 18th in Madison,” Anthony said. “I’m very excited. I’ve been on the show for 10-11 months. I’m excited to get back home and be with my husband and get back into life in LA. But I am so glad to have checked this achievement off of my list of things that I wanted to do in my career. I hope your readers will join me. What I will be doing is a mystery. I can’t reveal it right now. I’m on Instagram @teenyanthony in case anyone wants to find out.”
For Christina Anthony, it is a very Clue-like exit from the production. Stay tuned to her career to solve that mystery, a mystery that no doubt will have a happy ending.
