What happened when I ate 300mg of THC and saw The Play That Goes Wrong by myself

Once again, no one at The Pitch is assigning Pat to write these stories. They just keep showing up. // Selfie by Patrick Moore (?) we hope

Everyone has an idea of dinner theater in their head. I specifically think of the movie Soapdish, where Kevin Kline plays a washed up soap opera actor.

When I told my dad I was going he asked, “Is that the dinner theater with all the old TV stars?” I wanted to remain open-minded, but I didn’t want my experience to be tainted before I even tried it. I figured eating a whole bunch of pot wouldn’t hurt either.

So, for this excursion I thought I’d up the ante after my 200mg chocolate bar trip to the KC Current game. This time I ate a whole Panda 300mg Birthday Cake chocolate bar, which cost me $75.

For those concerned, I had a ride to and from my New Theatre adventure. I ate the bar about 30 minutes before I knew I was leaving to try and time it right with the show. I had two tickets but couldn’t find anyone to go with me, which is probably for the best since I was (hopefully) going to be high as shit.

When I walked towards the building I couldn’t believe how big the whole thing was. It’s a huge piece of real estate near 93rd and Metcalf, and I have no idea how many times I had driven past it and never noticed. Holy shit, the edible is working.

I had to walk through a parking lot and up a set of stairs with a bridge and creek underneath. It has immediate mega-church vibes. I walked to the box office window which felt like a 6-mile trek while the person in the ticket booth stared at me the whole time.

I finally arrived at the window and was a little out of breath, so I took a beat. Before I could say anything the woman said, “Two tickets for Patrick Moore,” and handed them to me. She is obviously all-knowing, but I couldn’t think of any questions to ask her on the spot, so I just said, “Thank you.”

I made my way through a hallway lit up like the set of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. After one confused lap around my section of staggered tables and risers, I began to realize that 300mg of THC is indeed a lot more than 200mg and I really needed to find my fucking seat before I had a mental breakdown.

Row 9 Table 04 was surprisingly hard to find, so I flagged down an employee for help. It was a tight fit, and I could fully conversations from both tables next to me. I may not have been the youngest person there anymore, but I was certainly the only high weirdo there by himself.

There was a full buffet, but I was far too scared to get up again. 

The chocolate bar was sweeter than the other Panda bars, but it was also the birthday cake flavor. I enjoyed it and wished there had been more, but thank god there wasn’t.

The play—oh yeah, the play—was The Play That Goes Wrong and it runs until July 3. It stars Armin Shimerman who was on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but he’s still very much a working Hollywood actor. In 2021 he was in an episode of the The Rookie with Nathan Fillion on ABC and was a voice for the video game Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.

The play is directed locally by Todd Lanker and was originally a 2012 production by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre Company. It won Best New Comedy at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards.

The synopsis by Playbill says, “The Play That Goes Wrong follows the antics of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, who are trying their very best to stage a production of a 1920s murder mystery. As the show’s title might suggest, this is not as easy as it sounds with everything that can go wrong doing just that.”

The show runs for one hour and 55 minutes. Act I is 54 minutes, followed by a 25-minute intermission with Act II at 36 minutes. The intermission didn’t seem that long. I was vaping outside and suddenly realized no one else was around anymore. I went to open the doors but they were locked. I thought I was going to miss the second act. It turns out it was a “push” and not a “pull” situation, which I realized as an elderly couple walked in through the doors next to me. I made my way back in time for the second act.

Forget everything you know about dinner theater, because the production value for this show was among some of the best I’ve ever seen in KC theater. That’s coming from someone who gets high and sees plays by himself. A lot.

Armin Shimerman was great as the butler who would always mispronounce at least one of his lines. The entire cast was wonderful, and I laughed my ass off. Things are supposed to go wrong, and they do. It’s so chaotically meta and Waiting for Guffman-y, and also very British.

It’s a testament to a high level of overall production talent when you have to coordinate very specific things to go wrong at very specific times. And they did it flawlessly. I can see why the place was so packed. Everyone should go, but I obviously recommend eating edibles beforehand.