Shear Madness is one of the longest-running nonmusical plays in the world, [1] owned by Marilyn Abrams and Bruce Jordan.

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Creation

David Eastwood and Bruce Jordan acquired rights for a murder mystery originally titled "Scherenschnitt," written by Swiss playwright Paul Portner, and made it into "Shear Madness."

Plot

The play is set in a unisex hair salon in the city in which it plays. The landlady, Isabel Czerny, who lives above the shop is murdered and the audience gets involved in the action by questioning the actors and attempting to solve the crime. The characters include a flamboyant homosexual hairdresser and his flirty yet ditsy assistant, along with a prim and proper uptight older lady and an older man who is a "used antique dealer." Much of the dialogue is improvised by the actors, and the humor tends to revolve around topical references to current events.

The ending of the play is different every night as audience members hear clues, question the characters and then vote on who they think is guilty. ^[2] Whoever gets the highest votes is then "revealed" to be the guilty party, although the audience is not made aware of this fact.

Performance history

Shear Madness opened in Boston at the Charles Playhouse Stage II in January 1980. A second production, at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., opened in August 1987. The Boston production is sometimes described as the longest-running or second-longest-running non-musical play in the world, although various non-musical plays have run for longer: Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap in London since 1952, Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano in Paris since 1957, and Israel Horovitz's Line in New York City since 1974. A Turkish adaptation by director Nedim Saban opened in Istanbul in 1998. In 2003 Saban adapted the play for a second time; where he introduced SMS messages and online chatting as means of interaction. ^[3]

Performance Locations

City	Theatre	Website	Status
Boston, MA	Charles Playhouse		Currently Running
Washington, DC	John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts		Currently Running
Las Vegas, NV	Shear Madness Theater at Town Square Las Vegas		Currently Running
Seoul, Korea	Al&Haek Theater		Currently Running

References

1. STAGE REVIEW: Shear Madness - Consistently Different, ''The Tech''
2. Shear Madness: Performing Arts, Theater and Dance Events in Washington, DC on washingtonpost.com's City Guide
3. "En son teknolojiyle tiyatro" by Sehnaz Pak - http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=61170