Welcome to Post Mortem! This is where Master Mystery Productions looks back on the performance of its most recent show.

A spoonful of sugar helps the sarcasm go down. Who doesn’t love a tea party with sweet treats, piping hot tea, impromptu seances, and bones under the croquet wickets. Totally normal for a late spring garden party, wouldn’t you say? A silly take on Victorian society with uppity aristocrats, scheming servants, and scandalous skeletons filled our imaginary garden with laughter. Throw in a missing diamond and a murder mystery and you have the perfect recipt for a tasty Master Mystery Production. It had been ten years since we first presented the funny and fluffy tea party comedy, The Last Garden Party. For 2020, our 5th anniversary, we planned to revive the show with a new ending, new suspects, and new jokes, but the pandemic changed course. Now a decade after its premiere, we brought this show back for our 40th production newly titled The Last Garden Party; or How a Lady Keeps Her Poise Around Corpses.

Opening up like a cabinet of curiosities, the set was a magical, imaginary “garden under glass” with handcrafted terrariums of bizarre plant species named by their discoverer, Paul Walliscroft (and made for the show by Paul’s actor, Justin Small), centerpieces under clear cloches and teapots spilling with foliage, whimsical china, botanical prints, and a garden view inspired by the designs of Tiffany stained glass. This was not a verdant landscape but one as artificial as the aristocrats who trotted through the scenes. With tasty lemon-blueberry cupcakes and miniature chocolate chip and strawberry muffins provided, guests could relax with a cup of hot tea and watch that shenanigans unfold at the Walliscroft estate.

The Last Garden Party; or How a Lady Keeps Her Poise Around Corpses is a full circle moment for MMP. Not only has it been ten years since the show first premiered in July 2016, but it also is our landmark 40th Master Mystery Production. What’s more, Hall of Fame Artist Devanne Fredette, who helmed the sold-out smash of Malice in Wonderland last summer, returned to direct this revival, which marks her historic 20th show with the company. Also, Devanne was the original Phoebe Walliscroft in 2016. Seeing her pass on the torch to a new generation of talent was heartwarming and, as the Edwardian creation Mary Poppins might say, “practically perfect.”

Step into the silly stuffiness of Victorian England at the end of Queen Victoria’s record-shattering reign. It’s 1900, and as the Industrial Age chugs forward, things in the English countryside evolve at a much slower rate. At least they did until Lord George Walliscroft, fresh from travels abroad, brings home the scandal of all scandals: An American wife! Poor Phoebe, the new bride, must navigate the web of etiquette and hierarchy of Victorian society alone while hosting her first garden party. Because it’s time to meet the in-laws: George’s studious son, Paul, wily ward Mia, intractable “Auntie” Lady Elizabeth Margaret Anne Prudence Temperance Charity Bradfordshire-Pierce, and the perpetually drunken General Major…who might be a cousin or uncle or something like that. While they argue and sling barbs and spill tea, Phoebe has to tangle with yet another complication: a body in the croquet lawn!

Of course, Phoebe’s outlandish in-laws are no help whatsoever to the unfolding mystery–“Is it a big body or a little body?” And the staff–housekeeper Mrs. Mullet, parlourmaid Eloise, and undergardener Thomas Hangsby–always eavesdropping on the affair and cooking up some schemes of their own. But bit by bit, little breadcrumbs of the story are dropped. Who is Colonel Tremayne? What happened to the legendary Iceberg Diamond? What happened at the last garden party at the Walliscroft estate? What was overheard on the terrace? And who could have taken the croquet mallet to the colonel’s head?

As the play went on, the chaos grew. From finding new bodies to using a skull for a croquet ball to learning a shocking truth about an aristocratic family, the insanity continues with twists, turns, troubling truths, and more. Phoebe and her family and staff will learn the proper etiquette for announcing a surprise body, how to handle yourself with grace, decorum, and poise (even around corpses), and the multiple uses for cast iron. All that’s needed is a chase sequence with a certain lady growling “Mush!” in her cumbersome hoop skirt.

Audiences LOVED The Last Garden Party with heaps of praise given to its script, characters, acting, direction, and experience. We ourselves thought it was one of our best productions yet with a stellar, hilarious cast with amazing newcomers who lit up our stage night after night. They gushed over the tasty treats and cackled at the stunts and sarcasm our loony lords and ladies gave them. The audiences were so good that we wished we could bottle them for all our shows in the future. The laughter was infectious, solidifying that The Last Garden Party is one of MMP’s gold-standard shows across our history. Major congratulations to the entire cast and crew for their exemplary work on the 2026 revival!

Read a review of the production here.

Closing night is our traditional awards night. First up was The Skeleton Key Award for Service Above and Beyond, our company’s oldest award. Each plaque is designed to uniquely reflect the show it was made for, making the Skeleton Key Award a symbol of an individual putting their unique heart and soul into a Master Mystery Production, going above and beyond their assigned jobs in the show to make it the best it can be. They are inspirations to us in the company, and they remain celebrated in our programs and on our website for years to come. Congratulations Elise Bechtel for winning the Skeleton Key Award for The Last Garden Party; or How a Lady Keeps Her Poise Around Corpses!

Following the Skeleton Key, we presented the coveted Diamond Mask Awards for Excellence in Performance. Voted by audiences, guests select their nominees for the award based on the performances they liked best. The actors with the most votes win. Three people won the award for The Last Garden Party; or How a Lady Keeps Her Poise Around Corpses. Congratulations to Elise Bechtel, Justin Small, and Samantha Small for your Diamond Mask-winning performances!

The Ruby Hand Award for Achievements in Design recognizes excellence in the various field of technical theatrical design from set, costumes, makeup, hair, lighting, sound, music, choreography, publicity and more. Members working on the production vote anonymously for the best technical design of the show on opening night, and the winning designers who receive the most votes are awarded on the production’s closing night. Not every production will present the award based on the show’s scale or technical elements. Designs that tie in votes both receive the award. Designers can win the award multiple times. Congratulations to Daniel Stallings, Elise Bechtel, Devanne Fredette, and Murolo Patchin for your Ruby Hand Award-winning set design for The Last Garden Party; or How a Lady Keeps Her Poise Around Corpses!

Special Commendations are MMP’s thank yous for members who have undertaken special, extra jobs on the production that often aren’t covered by something as simple as “actor” or “designer.” Many times, these are our eleventh-hour heroes–understudies who fill in, people who help us move or set up, etc. They wash dishes, frost over 200 cupcakes, loan china, pack boxes, stage rehearsals, support us in a thousand tiny ways that you may never notice. For The Last Garden Party, we did something unprecedented. This production was truly special. EVERYONE chipped in to get us ready for this show. With their help, the show got set in an hour and struck in an hour perfectly. We couldn’t single anyone out. As such, we decided to award EVERY member of the production, from leads to designers to tech day helpers to repair seamstresses and so on, a Special Commendation from Master Mystery Productions. This ambitious revival would not have been possible without you all. It is the largest Commendation pool in MMP history. BRAVO!

Pictured is the main cast and crew of The Last Garden Party including Director Devanne Fredette, Assistant Director Murolo Patchin, and Producer/Technical Daniel Stallings. Also congratulations to our other winners: Beth Sparks-Jacques, Olivia Holm-Risden, Leslie Blake, Anton Patchin, and Margit Stallings. You are all superstars!

It takes a village to build a show. A small village to make an English village, in fact. And this phenomenal team that created the majesty of The Last Garden Party; or How a Lady Keeps Her Poise Around Corpses proves the power of a brilliant team of exceptional artists. Whether it was their first show or their five hundredth, they all united into an unstoppable force to entertain our guests. No job was too big or too small. Put these eyes, hands, hearts, and minds in one place, and there is no limit to the genius and wonder they can create. It makes us excited to do it again! Who knows? You may receive an invitation to the Walliscroft estate for another garden party one day…

But the journey continues this summer! From the English countryside to a voyage across the pond. The Atlantic Ocean, that is. Set sail with MMP onboard the luxury ocean liner, the S.S. Americana, for screwball, slapstick shenanigans right out of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes meets an Agatha Christie whodunnit. Secrets? Shade? Fake beards? Why, we’ll have it in spades! Join us for our next Master Mystery Production we’re calling Ahoy!, written and directed by MMP Founder and Hall of Fame Artist Daniel Stallings.

Auditions are happening very soon. Keep your eyes peeled for dates. Ahoy! will perform the final weekend of August and the first weekend of September at 7:30 p.m. at the Lloyd E. Frost VFW Ship 4084 (117 N. Alvord St.) in Ridgecrest, CA. See you soon on the high seas for some high style drama!

–Master Mystery Productions