“Crab Cakes and Murder” by Michael Druce is a fun dinner theater experience presented by Freeport Players at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 8 and 9, at the First Parish Hall, 40 Main St, Freeport. Chef David Hansen will prepare dinner, with appetizers by chef Tais de Los Reyes and desserts by de Los Reyes and volunteers. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for seating.

For tickets to this dinner and a show, go to fcponline.org. All tickets, at $45, must be purchased in advance online due to menu needs and seating.

The play is full of family dynamics, hilarious wordplay, a little confusion, many twists and lots of fun. During a surprise storm, Captain Savage Raines goes missing at sea and is presumed dead. The sheriff says it’s suspicious since the shipwreck was just a day after Savage announced his retirement and revealed plans to divvy up Peg Legg Seafoods — leaving out his wife Peggy and largely cutting out the rest of the family, except his bootlicking twin daughters. So, everyone had a motive for sabotage. Reeling in audience members to help sift through the evidence, Sheriff Shoals casts a wide net to try to catch the guilty party. Clue packets and audience participation are sure to make this fishy murder mystery, directed by Linda Duarte and produced by Judy Lloyd, a seafood delight for audiences. Discuss the clues and suspects with your table-mates and come up with your answers.

Cast members are: Elise Alves, Dana Chabot, Karyn Diamond, Hali Fortin, Nate Levesque, Jillian Lovejoy, Peter Nicoll, Jackie Stowell, John Paterson and David Wallace.

The menu has several choices. The main course is crab cakes or vegan (chickpea/hearts of palm) cakes with garlic aioli on a bed of mixed greens with balsamic glaze, roasted red and gold potatoes, sautéed summer squash and zucchini with herbs, appetizers (croissant sandwiches, veggies, fruits, cheeses, meats, crackers), and choice of desserts. BYOB for alcoholic drinks. (There will be a cooler of wine and beer to serve yourself by donation.) Coffee, tea and water will be provided.

Freeport Players is a community-based organization that runs predominately on volunteer labor and provides a variety of theatrical performances and theater-based opportunities to local and regional adults and children with the purpose of building a lively community through creative endeavors that build skills, enrich, inform and entertain. In short: Think. Laugh. Feel. Create.

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