Amateur detectives get the chance to crack the case of a beloved character’s death over dinner — but hold the cheese.

“A lot of time, dinner theater has a bad rap of being cheesy, but it’s more like going and seeing stand-up comedy or something,” said Keni Bounds, co-founder of Detectives Theater Company, which will present “Cracked” June 1 at Roca.

In the play, Old King Cole summons Georgie Porgie and Jack and Jill to investigate the death of Humpty Dumpty whose iconic great fall might have been caused by foul play, Bounds said.

The audience gets to act as the jury to decide what really happened before all the king’s horses and all the king’s men got their hooves and hands on Humpty Dumpty.

“It’s good for people to come and just forget about their week and have fun with us,” Bounds said.

The basis of characters is familiar but they are more sinister than in the children’s stories, Bounds said. It becomes obvious soon into the play that Old King Cole may be hiding his real reason for bringing the characters to his kingdom, she said.

“You definitely wouldn’t want your children having this view as far as the characters go,” Bounds said.

Bounds and Eric Riggs started the group about three years ago after performing in other dinner theater troupes in Jackson. They were tired of cheesy dinner theater and decided to come up with their own plays, Bounds said. “Cracked” is the newest of about a dozen plays the group performs.

June 1 will be the group’s third performance at Roca, entertainment director Tarsha Neal said.

“We usually have a really good crowd,” Neal said.

On the menu for amateur sleuths will be chicken breast with sun-dried tomato and lemon butter sauce served with buttermilk mashed potatoes, or pan sautéed red fish served with rice pilaf. Each meal comes with sweet potato and white chocolate bread pudding with a bourbon sauce for dessert, Neal said.

Interactive shows at the restaurant provide networking opportunities for people who have to cooperate with friends and strangers to solve the case, Neal said.

“You have to work together to solve these different mysteries at the end of the dinner. It’s really neat,” she said.

About 40 people attended each show at Roca, which is the ideal size for an interactive murder mystery, Bounds said.