Cocktails on deck. Jewels around throats. Gossip in the passageways. And a bodies in the cabins. Sounds like exactly the sort of transatlantic cruise Master Mystery Productions would dream up. Sailing into strange and silly waters for the first time, this is an entirely new story for us as we aim our sights on the Atlantic Ocean as a setting. We’ve never really explored the ocean quite like this before now. So what were the inspirations behind this beautiful show? Read on to learn the secrets behind writing Ahoy! from playwright and MMP founder Daniel Stallings in this first behind-the-seas blog post.

LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND WACKY: The Making of Ahoy! (Part 1)

In the interwar period between 1918 and 1939, was there anything more glamorous than a sea voyage? Before planes took precedence for long-distance travel, a ship was the most convenient way to skim around the world. I often take inspiration from the show’s venue to imagine my worlds. With us returning to the VFW Ship 4084, where we staged How to Solve a Murder three years ago, I became obsessed with the word “ship.” If the VFW is called a ship…why couldn’t our new play be set on a ship? We’ve never done that before. Anyone who knows me KNOWS I am a deeply passionate nerd for the universe of Dame Agatha Christie, and I often find myself the most comfortable writing mysteries from her era and style. And with my love of theatre, I knew a ship-based story that would be a perfect home for that style of whodunit: Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. What a perfect fit. Ships have held whodunits in Christie tales from Death on the Nile to “Problem at Sea.” But I also took inspiration from her sunniest mystery, the Hercule Poirot novel, Evil Under the Sun, to capture the vibe of a glamorous vacation gone wrong.

The ship, the S.S. Americana, takes the bulk of its inspiration from the luxurious R.M.S. Queen Mary, now permanently docked in Long Beach, CA. I researched into ocean liner companies such as White Star and Cunard to build the itinerary of the voyage. I chose a transatlantic voyage, because it opened up the cast to more personalities from across the pond and play up the American-British relations prevalent in mystery fiction at that time. The 1930’s were, even despite the Great Dpression, also seen with rose-colored windows of glamour, thanks in part to whodunit adaptations. Murder on the Orient Express gave us the year of 1934, which was also the year Anything Goes opened on Broadway. But the era served a theatrically practical function as well. First of all, we had done the 1920’s to death (pardon the pun) over the ten years of MMP from shows like Murder at the Red Fez, Bury Me in Paris, and Tete-a-Tete. We wanted an excuse to dress up, look glamorous, wear those jewels that are hidden away, which aligned with the season’s theme of “All That Glitters.” And 1930’s fashion was still dressy for dinner–especially the embarkation dinner on a luxury ocean liner–before WWII came and changed people’s dressing and dining habits for good. The fashion was streamlined and elegant, easy enough to replicate in this day and age without too much excessive frills or construction. Makes navigating this high-octane slapstick show much simpler for the many actresses in their gorgeous gowns.

Populating the Americana came very naturally with relationships we haven’t had much pleasure to explore at MMP before. I wanted an heiress to be the centerpiece of the show. Rich, fluffy, flighty, flapper-y…you get the idea. An American heiress made the most sense, and research showed that cosmetic brands were generally able to withstand the economic catastrophe. Her name, Lana Lovelace, is an homage to Anything Goes ingenue and heiress, Hope Harcourt. Agatha Christie’s Spider’s Web lodged a nugget of an idea with our ingenue being a lover of tall tales. And for the first time since Woman in the Walls in 2020, I wrote an engaged couple into the script with Lana’s perfect foil, a shy, sweet, nervous, perpetually seasick Briton named Joel Ryland. The contrast of their relationship provided ample grounds for comedy with classic tropes of mistaken identity, disguises, and misunderstandings (thankfully not of the infidelity variety).

Ever since I worked on A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2024, I realized I needed a Puck character to sow seeds of mischief throughout the script. It made the comedy leap off the page. And that Puck came in the form of Jessica Rabbit look-a-like Lola Langford. Lola obviously stems from Damn Yankees. I really wanted to play with the notion of a femme fatale actress who is so often cast as a homewrecker. I flip that on that its head and actually turned Lola into an agent of chaos. She’s not there to break up marriages; She’s just bored and wants to have fun. I loved making Lola sassier and weirder perhaps than most glamour dolls of the age, playing up the chaotic theatre kid inside her to great effect.

To round out the main cast, I wanted new archetypes. Lana needed someone to keep her out of trouble on the cruise, so having her father’s lawyer tail her provided some great contrast. Then came Lana’s former sponsor. We never really explored Society and debutante-culture before now, and it became fun to picture this slightly addled, sweet-souled. heard-of-hearing, persistent matchmaker toddling after Lana as she tries to solve a murder. Engagements? Oh ducky, what is the use of love when there’s a chance at a good position? A sort of anti-Miss Marple. Thus arose The Honorable Ginevra Longfellow, who fast became one of my favorite characters I have ever written.

Working on Ahoy! was one of the fastest turnarounds for a script I’ve ever had. I recycled some old mystery ideas for classic radio shows that never came to fruition to make an entirely new, entirely hilarious production. In many ways, there’s a comfortable familiarity to the world we built, a classic whodunit with secrets, twists, turns, comples clues, and so on. But then it unravels into a comedic chaos that keeps me cackling in rehearsal. I mean, the list of secret references go VERY deep from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, You Can’t Take It with You, the Peanuts, The Simpsons, Treasure Planet, South Pacific, and on and on and on and on and on. It’s all distilled and fermented and dispensed into a fizzy, bubby cocktail of maritime madness. Writing it was one of my favorite projects in my career, and I’m so excited to share this crazy story with everyone. I may be biased, but, to me, Ahoy! feels like the next classic for Master Mystery Productions we will be talking about for years. Who’s ready to set sail?

Having a great story is like a champagne bottle smashed on the side of the ship for its maiden voyage; It helps launch the journey. Now who is joining us on the trip across the ocean? Tune in soon for the next behind-the-seas installment where the actors talk about the passengers on this murderous cruise in Passenger Manifest: The Making of Ahoy! (Part 2).

And remember to secure your seats for this sparkling show. Tickets are sold here. We’d love to have you join us for the maiden voyage.

–Master Mystery Productions