What Price Murder?
by Jeff Siamon

Martha Brody is a Broadway acting veteran. It’s the early fifties. Now no longer an ingénue, she’s trying to recover her glory in a “murder mystery who-don-it” by the well-known playwright, Jordan Cooper. Her last four play have closed in less than two weeks. While the reviews of her performances have been polite, to an actress of her past fame, that sounded like a death knell for her acting career. But Sidney Maguire, a life-long friend, has other ideas. He’s directing Jordan’s play and has chosen her for the lead. That was good news until she came face to face with Nora Lamour. She’s the ingenue now. And she never stops upstaging Martha or belittling her acting ability in front of the cast and director. So what was to be a triumphant return to her former glory, has now become an emotional battle with Nora as well as the doubts she has of herself. She’s become paranoid, accusing everyone of attempting to unnerve her performance during rehearsals.
XXX“What Price Murder?” is the play they are rehearsing. It’s a drama of jealousy and murder. And coincidentally, it mirrors the real-life events of the actors as they rehearse the play. But what is supposed to be the murder of Nora’s character at the end of act one, becomes the real-life death of Nora.
XXXThere’re certainly enough suspects.
XXXThere’s the Broadway gossip columnist who will do anything for a sensational story. The once famous leading man who is being blackmailed by Nora after she found him snorting cocain. The brilliant playwright, Jordan Cooper. Nora discovers that What Price Murder is not his play! The director who once had an affair with Nora. And there’s more. The stage manager, an expert marksman, who is added to the list of Nora’s blackmailed victims because he provides Chester with drugs, Then there is Nora’s maid, whom she fires. And finally the mysterious teenager who is looking for a job with the company. They all play at murder.
XXXThe question Detective Lieutenant Hastings asks himself: Is the play these actors were rehearsing really a practice for an actual murder? Or was it an accident? By the time he knows the answer, secrets, lies and jealousies are revealed about each one of the suspects leading to the guilty one!