Has anyone done a Audience participation Murder Mystery show.  Any suggestions on any aspect of doing one would be appreciated.

Our theatre has done at least 6 murder mysteries, mostly as fundraisers and shows we can take on the road. They are a lot of fun! Very simple to do, limited rehearsals and no set to speak of. Our audiences love taking part. We usually follow the script with a break for food. Then after we've acted out the stories and the murder has been committed, we let the tables discuss who they think the murderer is. We usually have a fake newspaper with clues included in the stories sitting on all the tables. The audience decides who they think the culprit is and write it on a sheet of paper with their reason. (This next part is where you want someone that can think on their feet). We go table to table to hear the audience's solution, then we make fun of them, whether spelling, content, ... whatever. This usually gets great laughs. Then the murderer is revealed and all go home with a smiles on their faces.

As I mentioned earlier, you need a cast that's comfortable doing a bit of improv since you will all have to answer questions from the audience. We don't usually audition these roles.