Erle Stanley Gardner Mystery Festival
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Here to View the Erle Stanley Gardner Mystery Festival Program
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Here to View the Festival Poster
Whodunit? It’s going to take you more than a weekend-long investigation
through many “crime scenes” to find out the answers these
questions:
“Who got framed?” (Hint: probably
a painter did it). Who gets shot in
the “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue”? (Whether you guess dance
hall girl or
mobster, the criminally good performance is a showstopper.) And who
is “Always Winning Cases”? (Hint: think, or rather drink,
wine.)
“A Conspiracy of the Arts” is going
on in Ventura as dancers, poets,
painters, thespians, even opera singers, magicians and oenologists,
prepare for the “Erle Stanley Gardner Mystery Festival” on
September 21-
24. It’s the first official celebration of our city’s most
famous lawyer and
author of the Perry Mason detective series.
Gardner practiced law in Ventura in the twenties and thirties at the
Old
Courthouse (now City Hall) from his law offices (still preserved a block
away). On the second floor of the First National Bank building, Gardner,
writing off the record, created his fictional hero, detective and defense
attorney, Perry Mason.
To celebrate Perry’s birthplace, many artists,
arts organizations and
businesses are hosting mystery-themed events throughout the Ventura
Downtown Cultural District, Ventura Harbor and at Ventura College. Festival
sleuths can pick up their first clues “on the case of” the
mystery festival
every day at, at least, four sites. Read closely to catch all the wonderful
events that will take place September 21st - 24th, 2006.
For more information, call 805-654-7830.
To learn more about the festival and what will be happening, please read
the "Frequently
Asked Questions."