The Curtis is adding an interactive dinner theater focused on murder mysteries

Without a Cue, a murder mystery production company, is opening its first brick-and-mortar theater in the historic Curtis building.

Keystone Development & Investment, which owns the Curtis, has signed Without a Cue to a long-term lease for 3,346 square feet on the northwest side of the former publishing building. The theater, called the Red Rūm, will be built out in the space formerly housing Cooperage on the corner of 7th and Sansom streets.

Without a Cue was founded in 2002 by Traci Connaughton and is based in Montgomery County. It hosts walking, interactive murder mystery tours in Old City, but also has performances across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Now it will have its own theater.

Connaughton said she hopes to launch by the end of October. Keystone Development is undertaking about $100,000 in renovations to create the Red Rūm in the Curtis, according to Jake Fruncillo, the company’s leasing director.

The space in the Curtis will have cabaret seating that fits about 100, with cocktails and a menu of snacks and other light bites, Connaughton said. The production company is partnering with local distiller Pops McCann for the cocktail menu. Tickets will cost $35 for general admission or $75 for a VIP ticket, which allows holders to skip the line and comes with a free beverage and a full clue packet that accompanies the performance.

“This is a 20-year project in the works but this has been the goal all along,” Connaughton said. “Where and how and when was just something out in the future until last fall. We just wanted to take everything we amassed and put it all into this. We started looking last December and we figured the Curtis was out of our reach, but we figured it was the best place, and ended up signing the lease.”

All of Without a Cue’s productions are comedy and often involve audience interaction. The theater will open with “Phriends,” a murder mystery version of the hit sitcom that is based in Philadelphia — at the Fairmount Perk, Connaughton said.

For Keystone, adding Without a Cue to the Curtis complements its other food and entertainment spaces that dot Independence Mall. Within the Curtis there is P.J. Clarke’s, and it also has Independence Beer Garden at 100 Independence and the soon-to-open Lighthouse Immersive and Impact Museums at the Washington at 510-530 Walnut St.

“Our goal is to assemble and bring together uses that are complementary and support each other,” Fruncillo said. “We didn’t want them to steal or poach from each other. In their aggregate they can create a dynamic experience. We can take such well-known parts of the city — Walnut Street, Independence Mall — and create and activate an area so it becomes a true 24/7 work-play experience.”

Keystone isn’t done adding food and entertainment spaces to its office buildings. Fruncillo said he is “a firm believer” in the Independence Mall area and the company is talking to other food service providers about the Curtis, which has a ground-floor vacancy on the east side of the building. He also said Keystone is looking to add another food offering at the Washington.