The Great Detective

CONTEXT FOR CURTAINS - a 2005 musical about a boston theatre in 1959 putting on a musical called ‘robbin hood.’ except their leading lady (jessica cranshaw, or in this case, cammy meele) is horrible at performing! and shes MURDERED just after bows on opening night!

lt. frank cioffi (detective gumshoe) arrives on the scene to investigate the inner workings of this theatre and solve the murder. he falls in love, gets divorcees back together, helps to rewrite the show, and uncovers an insane amount of drama and blackmail happening in this theatre.

as the investigation continues, more and more mysterious things happen and two more people are killed. the show is being workshopped to open again in a few days, causing stress for the songwriting team as well as the performers, who are reluctant to let the show go on.

im the #1 curtains glazer. the songs are FIRE!! written by the same guys who did cabaret and chicago. it captures the feeling of theatre and being a performer in a really meaningful way, and i would recommend this show to anyone.

ONTO THE CHARACTER CHOICES! 🎉

frank cioffi - dick gumshoe : so, obviously a detective. cioffi is a little more competent than gumshoe but its alright. he’s also smitten with niki, or rather maggey. this man is down HORRENDOUS. and he’s a theatre kid who wound up as a detective instead. in turnabout big top, gumshoe says, ‘dead body, stage left.’ a line that is truly aligned with the spirit of curtains and makes me wonder if gumshoe himself was in theatre?

niki harris - maggey byrde : niki is much more of an ingenue than maggey, but she is gumshoe’s love interest! and niki also has a knack for being really unlucky. girl always ends up in situations..also has a relation with richard wellington (who ive casted as daryl grady). i think maggey is a perfect niki because of her tendency to appear extremely suspicious out of pure coincidence!

georgia hendricks - mia fey : georgia is one half of the songwriting team but gets put in the spotlight as the new leading lady to take jessica’s place. mia and georgia generally have similar personalities. when mia first started lawyering, she doubted herself and went through a lot, and the same goes for georgia. divorced from aaron (diego) but lowkey still wants him. georgia pretends to date bobby to make him jealous (which works). bobby is phoenix in this AU, and diego having a hatred of phoenix is really in character.

aaron fox - diego armando : second half of the songwriting team. aaron and diego are both prideful men and are known to be womanizers. in the script, aaron is described as a “sexy ladies man” which does remind me of diego🤨 aaron is too absorbed within his work, and his neglect of himself and his relationship was what caused his divorce with georgia. he realizes that he should have been better to georgia and that he genuinely loves being her creative partner. aaron swallows his pride, a lot like diego by the end of T&T. also the image of diego singing aaron’s song is so fucking heartbreaking.

christopher belling - klavier gavin : not klavier being from AA4 and the rest of these guys being from the OG trilogy.sorry king. anyway chris is the pompous british director of robbin hood, and hes very fussy over his craft which reminds me of klav in turnabout serenade. while i dont think klavier is as stuck up as chris, he is certainly just as bossy as well as a perfectionist.

johnny harmon - ema skye: johnny ( our production changed this character’s gender to be a woman, so i know them as jenny) is the stage manager of the show who is mostly done with everyone’s bullshit. christopher belling is always ordering around johnny, similar to the dynamic of ema and klavier.

carmen bernstein - morgan fey : HOOHHH boy. carmen is the producer of robbin hood along with her husband sidney (redd white). her daughter is elaine, who calls herself bambi (or dahlia, who calls herself melissa). carmen is extremely rude to her daughter and calls her talentless in front of the whole company. its a very strained relationship. carmen really does want bambi to succeed in the showbiz, but doesn’t want to make her daughter appear like a nepo baby. she is a stone-cold, money-loving, assertive businesswoman. her stage motherness is very morgan to me. morgan does some diabolical things for what she believes to be the sake of her own children. she gets most controversial mother of the year award. also gets to sing an incredible song!

bambi bernèt (elaine bernstein) - melissa hawthorne (dahlia) : bambi is a bit of a brat whos entitled and desperate for the lead. she is a dancer, and has a really awesome dance with bobby (phoenix). i chose to have her new name be melissa because that’s her fake name in 3-4. she has a strained relationship with her mother, similar to dahlia. i would have made bambi iris, but iris isn’t as much of a little bitch??

bobby pepper - phoenix wright : throughout my time in curtains, ive always compared bobby to phoenix which is what prompted me to create this AU. bobby is loyal and has a rivalry with aaron for georgia’s love, sort of mimicking whatever situation godot, mia, and phoenix had in T&T. even though georgia is fake-dating bobby, he actually has feelings for her but is content to let her go because it will make her happy. so i definitely think phoenix and bobby share a value of devotion. FURTHERMORE, bobby can also never catch a break physically. he gets injured twice in the show. once when daryl grady (unbeknownst to anyone else at this time) shoots and bobby is grazed by the bullet, and another time when daryl grady (richard wellington) hits him over the head and gives him a concussion. sounds familiar…. bobby is the choreographer for the production as well as the leading character of robbin hood, and he has hints of a romance with bambi (dahlia).

daryl grady - richard wellington : daryl is the murderer. well…not for ALL the murders, but for two of them. mr wellington is also a culprit. daryl grady is senior critic for the boston globe and he challenges the company to rework the show so he can give it a better review. he has a weird one-sided romance with niki, that connection to maggey i was talking about. he also hits bobby over the head to incapacitate him like richard did to phoenix during 2-1 so i thought it was fitting!

sidney bernstein - redd white : okay i know morgan and redd white arent together, but sidney isn’t the first of carmen’s husbands. sidney cheats on his wife constantly and is generally a malicious sleazeball. he has blackmail on almost everyone in the company, which he uses to make them work for non-union-approved wages. that sort of blackmail is reminiscent of redd white’s tactics.

oscar shapiro - marvin grossberg : oscar is the main benefactor of the production and he’s sunk a LOT of money into this disaster of a show because of sidney’s blackmail. grossberg is one of the victims of redd white’s blackmail and is seemingly very wealthy, so its fitting id say. also oscar is a bit of a wuss, much like grossberg.

jessica cranshaw - cammy meele : i really had trouble coming up with a good ace attorney character to be jessica. i chose cammy because she would be a disastrous theatre performer, and i can see her forgetting lines, misplacing props, and dozing off in the wings. jessica dies in the first scene of the show so she isn’t too important as a character. but she is a rude, ditzy, diva of a woman and that is cammy meele!