Whodunit improv impresario Kiki Dy pulls back the veil on Savannah’s growing faux sleuthing scene.
Written by Kiki Dy
Photography by Randall Lyvers
When I first meet Greg Goeken, founder of murder mystery theater Two Penny Tales, I don’t meet Greg Goeken; I meet Irish clergyman Father Frances O’Penny. And Greg Goeken does not meet Kiki Dy — but I’m not not Kiki Dy. I’m a composite of qualities I’ve always wanted to embody: unbridled id in a booby red Gunne Sax dress, romping around the venue stirring the pot as Julie Garland’s vengeful granddaughter.
“You’ve wronged me for the final time, Father!” I slur to Goeken, channeling my character, Ruby Garland. One quick quasi-kick to the shin, and I’m back in the fray, asking if “any of you lush lunatics know if Johnny Mercer is my grandfather?”
All the characters, myself included, are gathered at “A Salty Seance,” Two Penny Tales’ fifth show since launching in Savannah under the promise of losing themselves to improv and resurrecting Johnny Mercer. That’s the balance Two Penny Tales strives for: enough truth to ground the story and educate the audience about some of Savannah’s history, enough lunacy to lower the stakes.
Photos courtesy Front Porch Improv
Surrender to the Story
“We always catch ourselves saying things like, ‘So, who should we kill?’ when we’re writing in public,” laughs Jon Antoine, producer of Front Porch Improv’s recent interactive murder mystery experience, “Deadly Disguise,” alongside co-producer Vikram Perry.
Antoine and Perry launched Front Porch Improv into the pseudo-slaughtersphere in 2024. Their shows are a self-described “escape room/murder mystery hybrid” whose success rests on their writing, along with set design by Samita Wolfe. Wolfe is the owner of Film Biz Recycling, which repurposes props and sets from other film projects.
“At our shows, you really get to interact with a space and suspend your disbelief,” says Antoine. “You can walk around and pick up glasses and other possible clues.”
The magic of improv comes down to the interactions between the participants. It’s “the idea of saying ‘yes, and’ to allow you and your castmates to build a story together,” Perry explains. “Saying yes is actually vulnerable. But when you’re in a context that is safe, it breeds an incredible connection.” That sense of safety lets participants surrender to the story, suspending their disbelief and pretending there really is a mystery to solve.
& Provisions
Photos by Randall Lyvers
Free Your Emotions
I can relate to the problem of workshopping a murder in public, as I create my own mystery productions. There was that awkward moment when my writing partner, Olivia Dadgari, and I were tinkering with our first production. “So, I guess we’re going to have to kill Adam Sandler, huh?” Dadgari concluded, scandalizing the eavesdroppers around us.
Dadgari and I launched our annual events with a low budget and even lower expectations. Since our first shows at my house with a group of murder mystery virgins in 2023, we’ve gone on to bigger and better venues. Our most recent event, “The Hot Die: Last Call for Conrad Aiken,” christened The Hot Eye at Municipal Grand as its first event. We had 22 eagerly committed partygoers cosplaying everyone from Juliette Gordon Lowe to O.J. Simpson.
Murder mysteries are dopamine-doubling, combustible, and freeing — a license to be the person you’ve always wanted to be, explains my murder mystery MVP actor, Wray Burgess. In our productions, Burgess has played Adam Sandler, Sigmund Freud, an Eastern European gigolette with an unplaceable accent, and my late Uncle Mike.
While my annual mysteries are different from the Two Penny Tales and Front Porch offerings, we all have a larger, often unspoken aim for our shows: curating a chaotic yet safe space for people to explore the often-unspeakable edges of understanding. Because beyond the laughs and fake body counts, we can also suspend our disbelief to make meaning of difficult subjects. In 2024, for example, Dadgari and I centered our murder mystery around my uncle, who died of an overdose earlier that year.
Goeken attended as the ghost of singer/songwriter Warren Zevon and said that exploring the role helped him alchemize some of his own grief. Zevon lost his life to cancer, which Goeken’s mother also succumbed to that year after a long fight. Goeken and I (and my brother, who attended to play my father) worked through our grief together under the guise of murder mystery mayhem. There was laughter, tears, chanting, and an ungodly long after-party.
“I never want the night to end,” says Burgess. “If I were on a desert island with only one drug, it would be the murder mysteries.”
Join the Killing Spree
This year, Savannah has even more “murder” to enjoy. Two Penny Tales is expanding with residencies like “Murder at The Sexton,” a fake true-crime show held at The Sexton Pub and Provisions in the Starland District. It’s also working with partners and restaurants throughout the city. Even as venues change, the crux of murder mystery remains: freedom to engage with feelings, thoughts, and circumstances you normally never would.
“We’re all about the laughs, but telling a larger story is the end goal,” says Goeken. “We’re creating a space for all of us to make sense of and contribute to telling the story of a changing Savannah.”
