NYTimes Critic's Pick!

On Feb. 2, 1922, the body of the Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor, shot once in the back, was found on the floor of his plush Los Angeles bungalow. The crime remains unsolved — until you log in.

The Taylor murder provides the chilled spine for “Citizen Detective,” a playful, slightly sinister new Zoom experience from the Geffen Playhouse, which has temporarily rebranded as the Stayhouse. With “The Present,” “Inside the Box” and now “Citizen Detective,” this company has cornered the American market on agreeable online theater that runs and runs and runs. (Maybe they could share this know-how with some major nonprofits in New York, where efforts are paltry by comparison?)

Chelsea Marcantel, the show’s playwright and director, has cannily structured it as an online seminar in which the best-selling crime writer Mickie McKittrick (Mike Ostroski) coaches amateur gumshoes (that’s us ticket holders) on the finer points of murder solving. This is, McKittrick says, “a golden age of citizen detective work.” His training session, he says, will help us to sleuth ethically and more effectively, using the Taylor case as a model.

(Keep reading here!)