.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Imagine you’re at your company’s holiday party, and while you’re enjoying a few cocktails, you look around the room. A woman is stuffing food into her purse, a waiter has stopped working to tell a really bad joke, a waitress is flirting with the men and ignoring the women, and another waitress looks really mad and refuses to talk.

This is what employees of McGladrey & Pullen LLP experienced a few years ago at their party, when event coordinator Jerri Dahlman hired a group of actors to put on a murder mystery.

“I didn’t tell anybody we were dong this,” she said, “and people really thought there were people invading our party. It was the funniest thing.”

Entertainment to Go Inc. (E2G) provides a rare form of entertainment in Greater Des Moines, showing up at gatherings to perform murder mysteries, Broadway show tunes, full theatrical productions or whatever an event planner may request. Jerry Jacobson brought the traveling theater concept to life at the Des Moines Playhouse four years ago, and earlier this year broke off to focus on expanding it as a business full time.

“I’m really enthusiastic about it,” Jacobson said. “There’s nothing really like it in Iowa.”

Action!

E2G’s offerings have become so popular that it’s not uncommon to have five shows booked on one night during the holiday season. On Oct. 16, a group of E2G actors will perform the country hit musical “Honky Tonk Laundry” in Marshalltown, while other troupes put on murder mysteries for the Glen Oaks Country Club and the Iowa Municipal Finance Officers Association.

“My job is to make sure all the cast are where they’re supposed to be,” Jacobson said, “and I’m at where I’m needed most.”

The concept is similar to a dinner theater, only the actors show up at the reserved site. “What I want to focus on, since I have a degree in creative and performing arts, is the theater side and let someone else handle the food,” Jacobson said.

Most of the performances are for corporations, who have found E2G’s shows, especially the murder mysteries, to be “great icebreakers,” because they get the partygoers involved. Many hotels and restaurants will suggest E2G if a company that has booked an event at their place is asking for entertainment options, and the group has performed in settings as interesting as rail cars and river cruise ships.

Small towns also are beginning to book shows for events such as fund-raisers and festivals, and Jacobson will even work with event planners to create new performances, such as for Mount Pleasant and Summerset Winery.

E2G will travel out of state as well, which Jacobson said could pick up even more.

“It seems like I’ve just scratched the surface,” he said, “and if we go further out in the Midwest, then it’s really going to have to be expanded.”

Building the business

Though the business has taken off dramatically in the past couple of years, E2G has been around for 15 years, since Jacobson started the venture with a partner who later retired to Florida. He revived the concept in 2004 at the Playhouse, but as interest picked up, Jacobson realized he could expand his venture by making it a separate business.

“Jerry operated it and brought it up to a level of health that he could go out on his own and didn’t need our staff support, our resource support, and it could provide a living for him if we didn’t have to factor in those costs,” said Playhouse Executive Director John Viars. “It was an entirely amicable departure, and we still work together.” Jacobson continues to store props at the Playhouse and hires many of its actors.

Jacobson also has taken over the Playhouse’s spring tour, while the community theater will continue to do smaller tours with its educational programs and children’s theater.

From his home office, Jacobson spends his days booking shows, negotiating contracts with actors and clients and marketing the business. But more important, the longtime actor has found a way to focus on theater full time: writing shows, directing performances and even acting in murder mysteries, with one of his favorite characters being George, a likable waiter who tells bad jokes.

“This is what I’ve always wanted to do,” Jacobson said. “You always talk about going to New York and doing shows that way. Well, I decided I was going to have a family. It made it more peaceful for me to stay in Iowa, because they needed something like this. I’m sort of surprised about it.”

Until he revived E2G in 2004, Jacobson worked for his brother-in-law’s business, Linn’s Super Market, and acted in dinner theaters, at the Playhouse and in other shows.

Many of the actors Jacobson hires are friends he has met in the theater industry. Actors are paid based on factors such as the size of the role, whether they sing and how many shows they do, but it’s definitely part-time work, Jacobson said. Rehearsals pick up just before a tour, but otherwise, the group meets to work through mystery show concepts, with much of the acting being improvisational.

The biggest challenges for Jacobson are determining what to charge different groups – because show requests and audience size can vary dramatically – finding new actors, such as last year, when many of his actors were pulled into “Caucus! The Musical” during the holiday season, and getting to shows during bad weather.

But improvising has become Jacobson’s specialty.

“I never was into the improv stuff,” he said, “I wanted to read my script, audition and act. Now that’s all I do is improv. It’s great fun.”