Happy 2025! It’s been ten years of mysteries for us, so we have to celebrate in a big way! We are branching out to venues and platforms old and new, empowering fresh talent to stretch their wings, and providing even more opportunities for artists all over the country to explore their mysterious and dramatic sides. This year, we themed the season “Past, Present, Future.” For the “Past,” not only do we have period productions planned, but we also have mined our backlog of shows to revive and reimagine past Master Mystery Productions in new ways. For the “Present,” we continue stories in production with some of our best and brightest performers. And for the “Future,” we’ll send audiences into futuristic settings, find new media and methods to tell our tales, and empower future generations of playwrights and directors to start their journeys. It’s all happening in the 2025 season. Let’s check out what’s in store from MMP!

MURDER AT THE RED FEZ 2025 REVIVAL

Untangle your pearls and don your fedoras. We’re stepping out tonight to the best speakeasy this side of Chicago. The Red Fez was the height of underground luxury, and Michael O’Rourke—rumored to be the notorious gangster Mickey the Muckler—welcomes all manner of shady characters and sparkling heirs and heiresses to fling away their daddy’s fortunes at his club. While flappers enjoy the music and the drinks, some mischievous mastermind ices Mickey for good. With the manager imposing a lockdown until he finds (and personally eliminates) the one who likes their bodies like they like their drinks — cold, the Red Fez will soon overflow with secret identities, suspicions, and stolen goods. What is the lounge singer afraid of? What is that paper folded in the doorman’s pocket? Where has Mickey’s moll disappeared to? For the tenth anniversary of Master Mystery Productions, we’re bringing our very first mystery show, Murder at the Red Fez, to audiences with a fresh script, live music, and scene-stealing performances. It’s gonna be a swingin’ good crime!

A revival of the first ever Master Mystery Production, Murder at the Red Fez will be a sexy, stylish production with brand new twists and turns. We’re aiming for luscious set dressing, spangled costumes, and a secretive and intimate atmosphere inspired by Broadway productions like Chicago or the recent revival of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club. Reimagining our first show in the grandest way yet, we’re incorporating live music as well to turn our venue into a rollicking speakeasy. We’ll need actors to help us bring this ambitious show to life. Auditions for Murder at the Red Fez will be January 3 and 4, 2025 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Red Rock Books (206 W. Ridgecrest Blvd.). The show will perform March 28, 29, April 4, 5, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. with two Sunday matinees on March 30 and April 6 at 2 p.m. at Moe’s Music (207 W. Ridgecrest Blvd.)–a total of six performances.

MALICE IN WONDERLAND

After an excellent game of chess, Alice is to be promoted to queen as she has successfully maneuvered to the eighth rank on the Looking-Glass Chessboard.  A mad tea party has been prepared in her honor to celebrate her coronation.  Or is it her trial?  Accused of high treason for capturing the Red Queen and putting the Red King into checkmate, Alice must stand trial in a wacky courtroom filled with even wackier witnesses from her Wonderland days.  With the audience as her jury, Alice must plead her innocence before the judge rules a sentence before the verdict.  Is it off with her head, or will she go off her head?  In a magical, storybook location where the clock is always at tea time, the rules are better read backwards, and the characters are more than a little mad, Malice in Wonderland will keep you on your toes and constantly guessing as accusations, confessions, and heads fly. With games to play and enchanted places to explore, by the end of the night, you just might believe six impossible things before breakfast.

Malice in Wonderland will be co-written by MMP Hall of Fame Artists Devanne Fredette and Janis Kunz and will be our sixth collaboration with Red Rock Books. It will also be our third family friendly production after Mutiny on the Sea Witch and Shelf Life that will allow actors from ages 9 and up to audition and act in the show. A magical and hilarious misadventure, this show will be a chance for new talent at MMP to shine. Devanne Fredette will serve as the show’s director in her directorial debut. Auditions for Malice in Wonderland will be April 25 and 26, 2025 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Red Rock Books (206 W. Ridgecrest Blvd.). The show will perform July 18, 19, 25, and 26, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. at Red Rock Books.

EX LUNA

Space. The final frontier. The place where no one can hear you scream. A team of astronauts are on a mission to recover the lost remains of the Eagle, the lunar module that carried the first men to the Moon. But the recent lunar landing has gone horribly awry when the astronaut making a scheduled moon walk dies after his oxygen supply malfunctions. Equipment that shows clear signs of tampering. Before the crew can identify the one responsible, their capsule, on the return to Earth, suffers a devastating oxygen leak and power drainage, turning their return into a race for survival. With a murdered crewmate and a killer in the capsule, it’s up to teams from Mission Control and the Space Station to assemble the evidence, solve the murder, and navigate the marooned astronauts back home in record time. It’s an epic space-age adventure that will leave you breathless!

Ex Luna first performed near our 1st birthday in March 2016 for the Peer Mentor Club at California State University, Sacramento. This was our first cooperative play mystery where our entire audience worked as a single team to solve a murder on the lunar landscape. Inspired by both the Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 lunar missions, we divided the audience into Space Station and Mission Control teams in separate rooms with only spotty means of communicating. Reimagining this show for a fully digital production, we will be casting for the astronauts on the mission and those in Mission Control trying to guide them home. A casting call will be posted in February with numerous parts to fill. Voice acting parts can be filled by anyone ages 15 and up from around the world. Ex Luna premieres July 20, 2025 to commemorate the 1969 Moon landing by Apollo 11 on the MMP YouTube page. To read about what happened at the first performance of Ex Luna, read our Post Mortem blog post about it.

REGIONS BEYOND: THE BRITISH ADVENTURES PREMIERE

While searching an old storage building, you stumble across a box holding a voice from regions beyond. Secreted away in a dusty and forgotten corner is a long-lost collection of cassettes that could hold the keys to a celebrated and unsolved missing persons case. Before her unexplained disappearance decades ago, Emma Emerson was an experienced P.I. But in this case, P stands for Paranormal. She ran Regions Beyond, her investigation service into all things ghostly and ghoulish. An expert in folklore and debunker of hoaxes, Emma traveled all over the country to sniff out the spirits wreaking havoc in old hotels, abandoned houses, creepy cellars, and haunted theaters. With her trusty tape recorder, Emma recorded her case notes, interviews with witnesses, and the unearthly phenomena and voices from beyond. But not all things that go bump in the night come from the afterlife. Trapped on those tapes are the clues to sinister mysteries where fiendish minds have turned to many a monster and manifestation to disguise more human motives. And with her notes to help her, Emma will unmask the people orchestrating these otherworldly nightmares. And by listening to her last words, will you be able to follow the trail to what really happened to Emma all those years ago?

First conceived in lockdown of 2020, Regions Beyond was our first digital-only mystery series that followed Emma Emerson, a paranormal investigator, through her many cases around the country. A blend of The Blair Witch Project and Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, the “found footage” audio drama took a spooky turn in unraveling the human designs behind unexplained hauntings. The series ran for six episodes and a holiday special so far. It’s time to return to Emma’s adventures and Regions Beyond with two new episodes set during her vacation to the United Kingdom. These episodes have already been recorded and created. Additional roles for the last five episodes of Regions Beyond are available. Message Master Mystery Productions if you are interested in voicing a character for these later episodes.

“Case No. 104: The Old Corpse Road” — Emma needs to get away for a little bit, so she sets her sights on merry ole England, whose fields, moors, and village churchyards are steeped in rich folkloric tradition. When a stranger in a pub sets her on the trail of an old medieval corpse road seeing spooks of a recent vintage, Emma packs her tape recorder for an unusual road trip past lychgates and coffin stones down a winding, rugged path unused for centuries to witness these wandering spirits for herself. But are the feeble, floating lights she sees candles in cottage windows, will-o’-the-wisps attempting to lead her astray, or something far more sinister? Premieres Halloween 2025 at noon on the MMP YouTube page.

“Case No. 111: The Monster Beneath” — Emma’s trip to Scotland isn’t complete until she stops to explore the fabled lochs in the Highlands. The historian working at the ruins of MacDuff Castle overlooking Loch Blaine is happy to see her, because she might be able to explain the renewed and repeated sightings of a famous lake monster named The Beast of Blaine. The Beast has attracted a large and vocal following who swarm the loch to glimpse this living legend. Why, after years of silence, has the Beast returned in so credible—and visible—a fashion? Emma suspects there might be a different monster beneath it all. Premieres November 1, 2025 at noon on the MMP YouTube page.

VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS: A HOLIDAY ADVENTURE OF BASIL BREMERTON

The Adventures of Basil Bremerton, starring the eccentric English detective known for unraveling the most impossible crimes, commanded the radio waves for years as the world’s favorite mystery radio program between the World Wars. For a delectable holiday treat, radio fans were whisked to a frosty December night in London, 1934 for a premiere performance of the Chamberlain Ballet’s production of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. But opening night sours when the Sugar Plum Fairy falls ill onstage and dies. Her death leaves a bad taste in Basil’s mouth when we learn the prima ballerina sought the detective’s help the night before she died. Some phantom of the ballet had been tormenting her: leaving nasty messages, slashing her costume to ribbons, hiding dead mice in her dressing room. Yet the evidence always vanished before she could summon witnesses. The company just thought their prima ballerina was making up stories for attention. But Basil is not one to sugarcoat the situation so easily, and before anyone can have a happy holidays, he makes it his mission to ferret out the sour note hiding in the Land of Sweets. Pull up an armchair to the fireside, listen to this holiday radio special, and see if you can match wits with Basil Bremerton to solve this confectionary crime.

It has been over four years since we debuted our first–and only–holiday show for Master Mystery Productions: 2020’s The 12 Ghosts of Christmas: A Regions Beyond Holiday Special. It was a wonderful performance, but we felt it was time to add a new holiday offering to the MMP roster. Inspired by 2021’s digital show, Mum’s the Word, we return to classic radio shows and The Adventures of Basil Bremerton, starring the incredible voice work of 8-time Diamond Mask winning actor, Calvin Johnson, who claimed his 4th award for his portrayal of the eccentric Basil. Calvin Johnson and Davis Kunz return to voice their characters of Basil Bremerton and his assistant, Benjamin Anders, respectively, in this brand new holiday radio show to be released on the MMP YouTube page. We’ll be holding a casting call for new actors to perform the additional roles on July 25 (Christmas in July), giving actors a few months to record their lines. There will be eight additional roles to fill. Actors can either record at home or at Master Mystery Productions. This show is open to performers ages 15 and up all around the world. Visions of Sugarplums premieres Saturday, December 20, 2025 at noon on the MMP YouTube page.

However, keep your eyes peeled for more surprises from MMP in 2025. Not every production is listed here. With one hand in the past, our feet in the present, and our eyes aimed toward the future, the 2025 season is going to be loaded with twists, turns, secrets, and surprises. Ready to get started? Let’s make our 10th anniversary the biggest and best yet! See you in this new year!

–Master Mystery Productions