The play has ended. Its star, a beautiful actress named Vivian, graces the stage for her final bow. An adoring audience erupts in raucous applause at the sight of her. Suddenly, she jolts forward and stumbles to her knees. There is a gasp from the crowd as she falls lifelessly to the stage. The evening has come to an awful and abrupt halt. But the challenge has just begun.

This was the scene that played out before a number of Ohio Northern University students participating in “The Final Bow,” an interactive escape-room activity presented by ONU’s Theta Alpha Phi chapter on campus.

All the rage right now, escape rooms are immersive adventure experiences where players are put into a scenario and must try to “escape” the room by following clues and solving a series of puzzles. Theta Alpha Phi, ONU’s chapter of the national theatre honor society, decided to tap into the popularity of this puzzle-solving pursuit for one of its annual fundraisers.

The setting for “The Final Bow” was Stambaugh Studio Theatre in the Freed Center for the Performing Arts. Its premise was that players must solve the murder to escape the room, thereby freeing Vivian’s spirit. After viewing the opening scene portraying the mysterious murder, teams of up to eight people were given 20 minutes to escape the room, using elements of the room to solve a series of puzzles and complete tasks.

The theatre was all decked out with special lighting, props and scenery to set the mood, but this staging wasn’t just for show; each element held distinctive clues for teams to use to escape the room. Another challenging twist to the event was that players were not allowed to bring their cell phones with them, ensuring complete authenticity within the experience.