The Game is Afoot: Port Polson Players launch season with "Baskerville"

The Port Polson Players open their 49th season of Summer Theatre with Ken Ludwig's “Baskerville – A Sherlock Holmes Mystery,” based ever-so-loosely on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Hound of the Baskervilles.”

This classic mystery, laced with plenty of comedy, plays July 5-21. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays (no performance July 4).

Neal Lewing plays Sherlock Holmes while Jim Siragusa clocks in as Doctor Watson. Anna Loehrke, daughter of Players producers Karen and Neal Lewing, flew back from Cleveland to her old stomping grounds to direct the show and play 14 roles as the only female in the production.

The cast is rounded out with two recent Polson High graduates, Kai McDonald and Wica Brown, who play 15 and 11 roles respectively. In this murderously funny adventure, the male heirs of the Baskerville line are being dispatched one by one. To find their ingenious killer, Holmes and Watson must brave the desolate moors before a family curse dooms its newest heir.

Carmine Mowbray painted the scenery for the show, including the foreboding Baskerville Castle. Karen Lewing, meanwhile, is stitching together more than 40 costumes for the show’s mind-boggling array of characters, played by just three characters – plus, of course, the two intrepid sleuths.

Polson's historic log theatre on the south end of Flathead Lake is home to this mystery, produced in association with The Mission Valley Friends of the Arts. Call 406-883-9212 or visit PortPolsonPlayers.com for more information or to make reservations.

The season continues with Ivan Menchell’s heart-warming “The Cemetery Club,” July 25-Aug. 11; and ends with “Those Boomer Boys,” a salute to the golden age of music and comedy, when Truman was president but Elvis was king, Aug. 15-Sept. 1.