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It's 1939, and every searchlight in Hollywood is aimed at the Empyrean Theatre for the premiere of Tempest over Tahiti. But when the house lights come up, Lodestar Pictures' founding mogul doesn't rise from his loge. The town's brightest opening night becomes its darkest blind item. The leading lady he made, the director he humiliated, the columnist holding tomorrow's headline: everyone smiled for the flashbulbs, and someone slipped away in the dark of the second reel. The show, as the old man liked to say, goes on. Time to find out who.
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Welcome to the Empyrean Theatre, 1939, on the biggest premiere night the town has ever thrown. Hollywood is a company town, and the contracts own the people: the studio makes you, names you, and can unmake you between reels. The premiere is coronation and public trial at once, and the morning column is the town's true courtroom. Speak the lingo: it's always “the picture,” never the movie; “the lot” is the studio; being “above the title” is stardom and “a loan-out” is exile; “a blind item” is gossip wearing a domino mask; “the Code” is the censor's office; and “a screen test” is either a beginning or a burial. Etiquette: you smile for every flashbulb, you never read a review aloud, and you applaud the picture whatever you thought of it. And nobody, but nobody, leaves before the house lights come up.
Count your guests only — not yourself, anywhere from 6 to 32. Want to play too? There's an option below once you pick a number.