Historical Characters Murder Mystery Party

October 14, 2000

Schedule of the Party

  • 6:00 "Potsdam '45 Get to Know You Mixer."   People arrive and eat appetizers. Mixer game: over appetizers, get to know one other character. When the room lights wink, proceed to the living room to introduce the character you got to know.

    Pairings:

    Lise MeitnerWinston Churchill
    Tokyo RoseRobert Oppenheimer
    Lady AstorJames Dean
    Ella FitzgeraldComrade Stalin
    Mrs. RemingtonAlan Turing
    Margarete BohrCharles Lindbergh
    Marilyn MonroeMr. Remington
    Sarah WinchesterHarry S. Truman
    Audrey HepburnStalin's Comrade #1
    Madame CurieStalin's Comrade #2

  • 7:00 Preprandial Accusations   The circumstances of the maid's demise are announced. Everyone draws one clue and one name from a hat, then gets together with the person whose name was drawn and makes up a story about how/why they have knowledge of the clue. Pick any room for your individualized conferencing. When you see the room lights wink, proceed to the kitchen for dinner.

  • 8:00 Dinner   During dinner and the beginning of the dancing we will have more individualized mingling so that if anyone needs to do anything scripted (from Josh and Drew) they will have the oppurtunity. To encourage this, please try not to stay with people you know in real life but instead associate with people your character would want to hang out with.

  • 8:45 "The Potsdam Nightlife"   Dancing (+ ballroom dancing, for those inclined) in the front room. This is to fulfill Drew's request that we move around a lot during the evening, "or it won't work." (We wish we knew what he meant by that . . .) Those not wishing to dance are responsible for finding a way to keep themselves mobile . . . might we suggest mingling with the others in the living room and maybe doing a group round of "ring around the rosy" or twister or something . . . When you see the room lights wink, proceed to the kitchen for dessert.

  • 9:30 Dessert   This is our last chance to figure out who the murderer is! Try to make a circuit through the guests, talking with each character one final time, and decide whom you most suspect. Take an index card from the table and clearly write your character's name (underlined) on it. Underneath that, write the name of the character you most suspect to be the murderer, followed by any secondary tasks that you have deduced over the course of the evening. When you see the room lights wink, proceed to the living room for the denoument.

  • 10:15 Denoument, "Doing the Laundry, Potsdam Style"   We will gather in the living room. At this point the murderer(s?) should reveal the true story about what happened to the maid and why. Following this, everyone will go around and state their secondary tasks, the index cards will be read, and prizes will be awarded. Everyone please remember to send Drew (skulan@leland.stanford.edu) and Josh (sabloff@hopf.stanford.edu) thank-you notes for all their hard work putting this together!! Maybe after its all over we can discuss ideas for having a party like this without making your friends stay up until 4am working out a story and planting clues . . .