Clue: Live on Stage! Kicks Off the Broadway Season at The Fabulous Fox With a Strong Performance
–by Ashley Cox
Tuesday, the 22nd, marked the beginning of the Fabulous Fox’s 2026-2027 Broadway series. STL weather must have finally received the memo on the arrival of autumn as guests lined up with light cardigans and jackets waiting for the doors to open to the ornate lobby on Wednesday night for the performance I was reviewing. The Fox is such a visual treat and it felt soothing to slip back into my Broadway night ritual… Parallel parking by the Sheldon, a quick stop by the box office to say hello to Megan, and once inside, weaving through the crowd and down to the ladies lounge to sit until it is time to take our seats.
While I am familiar with most shows coming through the Fox, I still enjoy doing background research. Instead of researching Live on Stage, I read about the not-so-celebrated early 90s Clue Musical. That left me slightly perplexed as I waited for the cast to start singing. They do not sing. Clue: Live on Stage! is an imagining of the cult classic 1985 movie based on the Parker Brother board game.
Our cast of characters are brought to the mysterious Boddy Manor for a dinner party that quickly devolves into murder and mayhem. The set and lighting make inventive use of the stage to create the expansive mansion. Running 90 minutes with no intermission leaves no excess time for large set changes, instead pivoting walls allow for peaks into multiple rooms at a time.
The movie, which was initially a flop, has slowly built a huge following, including icons, like Madeline Kahn and Tim Curry, this cast had exceptionally large shoes to fill. Much of the dialogue is lifted straight from the film which might make some audience members wonder why they didn’t just stay home and watch the movie. Live on Stage finds its strength in the cast. They clearly use the source material but make the performances their own. Especially strong are Madeline Raube as Mrs. Peacock and Nate Curlott as Colonel Mustard. The bulk of the stress is placed upon the shoulders of Adam Brett as the butler, Wadsworth. He has the lion’s share of dialogue and is being measured upon the recently passed, Tim Curry. Brett brings a performance that felt like a mixture of Curry, the expressiveness and physicality of Rowan Atkinson, and something else I could not quite put my finger on. His monologues and comedic timing make the play.
Clue: Live on Stage! is not a rehash or an overly elaborate version of seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show (which coincidentally you can see at the Fox on October 6th), it has become another entity of the Clue franchise. The murderer escapes on October 4th so make sure to visit Boddy Manor before then. The Broadway series picks back up on October 13th with another cult classic turned musical, Death Becomes Her.