Through thick and thin, ‘Marriage can be Murder’ performers stick together

Despite producing the interactive dinner show “Marriage can be Murder,” performers and Henderson residents Jayne and Eric Post promise that they really do love each other.

“We work together; we live together. What’s the one thing we always want to do? Be together,” Jayne said. “It’s crazy because some people are like, ‘My husband just retired, and I wish he’d just leave.’ We don’t have that.”

The show is a comedic murder mystery at the D Las Vegas, 301 Fremont St., that changes its plot and cast about every three months.

“We get calls for counseling,” Eric said. “It’s really sad because if they’re calling ‘Marriage can be Murder’ for marriage counseling, you know they’re in a bad place. I have numbers to give them now because I would get one a week.”

The couple coincidentally met after a different interactive dinner show in Sacramento, Calif., in 1989. Although Jayne was “blind as a bat,” she said it was love at first sight.

“I used to go for the bad boys, but here was this straight-laced Navy guy raising his daughter,” Jayne said. “He was so out of type for me, but I was drawn to his humor and gentleness and faith. He was a rock, and it was different.”

Having both been previously divorced with children, Eric said he felt he and Jayne were on equal footing. He asked her six times to marry him before she finally said yes.

“Besides being beautiful, I loved her sense of humor,” he said. “When entertainers get together, they’re always fighting for the spotlight, but she would say something funny and then hand it over to me. Her willingness to share really intrigued me.”

Though Jayne was gun-shy about getting remarried, the couple eloped to Lake Tahoe 58 days after meeting.

“We planned for about two or three days, but with all our friends and family, the wedding was just starting to explode,” Eric said. “So I had my Navy buddies come up, we got the kids dressed, and we got married one Sunday after church.”

The Posts began performing together at the Suspects Murder Mystery Dinner Theater in Sacramento before moving to Lake Tahoe, where they later started “Marriage can be Murder.” In 1999, they moved to Las Vegas when the show was booked at the former Showboat.

“I always said it would be a cold day in hell if I ever moved to Vegas,” Jayne said. “When Harrah’s flew us down to talk about doing the show at the Showboat, we woke up the next morning, and the palm trees were covered in snow. I took it as a sign.”

But when 9/11 occurred, Jayne said the city went from an “entertainment mecca” to a “ghost town” because fewer people were traveling.

“I think there were, like, 38 shows that closed in eight months during that time,” Jayne said. “Life took on a very serious toll, and what we did seemed very frivolous. We started wondering if comedy is what we should do in life.”

The Posts took a two-week break to decide if they wanted to continue performing or take on more serious careers, such as nursing or joining the Peace Corps.

“Then we kept getting calls from people saying, ‘Please, I’ve been crying for two weeks, just make us laugh,’ ” Jayne said. “That’s when we realized that, even in the darkest of times, there’s a value in making people laugh, being humorous and doing comedy.”

While laughter is generally the best medicine, it was a combination of faith and love that helped the couple cope after their 16-year-old son Paul was killed in a car accident while riding his bike in 2003.

“After Paul died, (Jayne) was a different person,” Eric said. “So I knew I could either continue living and comparing her to who she was, or I could go back and start from zero.”

The couple renewed their vows, focused on good memories and began living life to the fullest to ease the grieving process. Jayne said it helps to remember she has “one foot in heaven and one foot on earth.”

“We had to learn that it’s OK to say we have two kids now,” Jayne said. “It’s not that we’re discounting him, but when something like that happens, you choose to live or you choose to stop. You can’t die from a broken heart, because if you could, we’d be dead.”

From the highs to the lows, the couple credit their successful marriage to having balance, faith, and, of course, humor.

“ ‘Marriage can be Murder’ is a phrase and the title of our show, but it’s also life lived,” Jayne said. “I might murder you, but I will never divorce you.”

“Marriage can be Murder” is performed at 6:15 p.m. daily. Tickets start at $65.95.

For more information, visit marriagecanbemurder.com.

Contact Henderson View reporter Caitlyn Belcher at cbelcher@viewnews.com or 702-383-0403.