When Jon Robitaille moved back to the Gulf Coast, he could not find improv comedy anywhere. So in 2013 he founded Bay Cities Improv Company — and over the past decade, his troupe has grown from a handful of hopefuls performing in bars into one of the most distinctive theatrical operations on the Gulf Coast, headlining murder mystery dinner shows aboard a paddlewheel riverboat on the Mobile River.
The journey from Selma to the riverboat ran through architecture school, Southern real estate, and a Myrtle Beach improv class that changed everything.
From Retail to Improv
Robitaille, born and raised in Selma, studied architecture at Auburn University before switching to marketing. After college he moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and spent nearly 20 years in retail and real estate. It was there, in 2008, that he was introduced to improv — he read about how improv principles help people in sales and other jobs, went to try a class at Carolina Improv, and fell in love with the form.
In 2010 he moved to Mobile, which had always been a second home, to keep his father company after his mother died. After the real estate bubble burst and the BP oil spill, he worked in wine and beer and advertising — and eventually devoted all his time to the improv company. He got involved with Theatre 98 in Fairhope as an actor, director, producer and technical director, even starting a Christmas radio play tradition there that later moved to the Eastern Shore Art Center with radio-classic performances of “Alice in Wonderland” and “Sherlock Holmes.”
The Murder Creek Mystery Show
In 2019, when the riverboat Perdido Queen moved to Mobile’s riverfront, Robitaille called with an idea: murder mystery shows. The operators were already discussing the same thing. They started with two shows a month, and the format grew quickly to four shows a week — evolving from a standard murder mystery into what is now the trademarked Murder Creek Mystery Show, set in the fictional town of Murder Creek somewhere in the middle of the Mobile River Delta.
The show’s formula is deliberately unorthodox: no scripts. Actors work from outlines — character-driven, audience-acted — and every audience member is a suspect and an amateur detective. The mayor of the town is selected from the audience, and it is the mayor’s job to choose the suspects and eventually identify the murderer. Every show incorporates song and dance, getting the audience up and moving. “The audience is the show,” as Robitaille puts it. “Every show is as unique as the diversity of the audience.”
Actors must know their characters and backstories in detail before stepping on stage; the outlines stay the same, but the performance is improvised around them. Shows run two to three months in themed seasons, drawing a mix of locals and visitors from outlying areas including Hattiesburg and Pensacola.
New Shows and New Stages
The company keeps writing new experiences. “The Pirate’s Curse,” loosely based on the pirates who once sailed Mobile Bay’s waters, was developed as a family-friendly weekend brunch cruise on the Perdido Queen, set in the 1820s and designed for audiences “from 3 to 103,” with actors trained to calibrate the show’s subtle humor for the room. Plans have called for seasonal family productions on the riverfront as well.
Robitaille has also rebuilt the company’s classes in partnership with Innovation Portal in downtown Mobile, and he is developing a new signature improv comedy show — working title, “Operation Improv” — that blends song, dance and satire in the Murder Creek style. He writes a weekly email newsletter, IMPROVactive, applying improv principles to everyday life: be in the moment, listen, say “yes, and.”
Bay Cities Improv remains actively seeking a permanent theater home in Mobile. The company fields roughly 15 to 20 actors, all paid per performance, mostly from the coastal area, with credits ranging from the Saenger Theater in Mobile to Boomtown in Biloxi. Long term, Robitaille wants to expand beyond Mobile — taking the Murder Creek Mystery Show to Nashville, New Orleans and San Antonio.
Why Improv Works Here
Mobile’s riverfront dinner cruise scene has proven a natural fit for the interactive format. Aboard the Perdido Queen — docked behind the Convention Center on the Mobile River — guests board for a two-hour-plus evening of dinner, a cash bar and a mystery that unfolds from the minute the boat leaves the dock. Because the show is improvised, no two cruises are alike, and repeat customers return for new stories in the same fictional town.
It also fills a niche the local scene lacked. Until Bay Cities Improv arrived, the Gulf Coast had no dedicated improv troupe; now the company performs regularly, teaches classes and offers private shows for corporate groups and celebrations. As Robitaille tells his students, the number one rule of improv — “yes, and” — opens up the world beyond the stage: better listening, better communication, better negotiation, and openness to opportunities you would never have considered.
“Stay IMPROVactive,” he says — good advice whether you are on the Perdido Queen’s stage, in an Innovation Portal class, or simply trying to make sense of everyday life on the Gulf Coast.