The World Premiere of the live stage play The Midnight Torch: A Detective Murdoch Mystery is auditioning nationally for its premiere production at Vertigo Theatre, in Calgary AB. Vertigo Theatre, based in Calgary, is Canada's pre-eminent National Theatre in the Intrigue and Mystery genre. These include stories of Mystery, Horror, Thriller, Suspense, Noir, Crime, Courtroom, and Political Drama. As one of the most successful theatres in Canada, now going into its 50th Anniversary Season, Vertigo has been lauded for its works, accumulated numerous awards, and has a large and consistent audience base for the 5-show playbill season, presented from existing canon while also commissioning, developing, adapting, and premiering World, North American, and Canadian plays within the genre.

This exciting new stage adaptation acts as both an origin story and canon for fans of the beloved long running CBC Shaftsbury series, as well as a standalone live mystery play for audiences less familiar with it.

The year is 1893. New Year’s Eve is just around the corner and Edith Booth, a well-off debutant inspired by her recent visit to the Chicago World Fair, invites a group of inventors to her Toronto home to present their new inventions to her. Among her guests is young, newly-appointed junior detective William Murdoch, an inventor in his own right. When the presentation of a ‘disappearing device’ goes terribly wrong, Fred Miller is found dead inside the machine and it is
clear that murder is the cause. Now all of the guests are suspects. What starts out as a cut-and-dry case soon devolves into a tangled web of deceit and betrayal. Murdoch and his new acquaintance Julia Ogden must combine their knowledge of science and investigation to deduce who the killer is.