All About Who I Am…
My name is Susan Hope and I have been involved in amateur dramatics in my home town of Blackpool for over ten years. My local group, St. Bernadette’s Players, started producing an annual, Summer murder mystery to raise funds for our other productions. Being fascinated by the genre, I took a lead role in sourcing scripts, producing, directing and acting in these events. I discovered that the available packs, games and scripts never had everything in that we needed, so I found myself re-writing parts and fleshing out the information given to the different characters.
My main career has been as a Chemistry teacher at a secondary school. However, a bout of serious ill health left my career as a distant memory. In an effort to keep my mind active, I started to write. The first thing that started to flow from my pen turned out to take the form of a murder mystery script. Unsure of myself, I put the script through “blind” testing with my drama group. With baited breath I waited as the script was read aloud… I found those reading it laughed and “oooo’d” in all the right places. When I came clean that it was my script, I was encouraged to direct it for the Players.
“Summer Slaughter” became my first murder mystery script to be very successfully played to the public in August 2015. Since then, I have continued to write murder mystery packs and I offer them here to you as a great way to raise some money, while giving your audience a fun-filled evening out as well. Via my Contact page, you can get in touch if you need further assistance with the murder mystery packs or you can try the FAQ page to see if the answers there give you clarification.
Currently, I am now the Chairman of St. Bernadette’s Players, who turn 40 in October!! I am in the process of writing a fourth script, compiling documents needed to put a funding bid in for extra staging, producing my second murder mystery (“Blizzard of Blood”) in August 2016, starting a writing collaboration project with two friends to create a truly unique pantomime, and going through medical retirement. In other words, my world is very busy and I hope this website can give you a bit of an insight into my life too, so please have a browse.