Santa Claus
Retiring. Effective tonight.
An Interactive Musical-Comedy Murder Mystery
Slay Ride VISanta’s Last Christmas
Elfish Prezley
Loyal deputy. Expecting promotion.
Tooth Fairy
Candidate. Tutu. Grudge.
Easter Bunny
Candidate. Working the room.
Mother Nature
Candidate. Controls everything else.
Santa Claus
Retiring. Effective tonight.
Elfish Prezley
Loyal deputy. Expecting promotion.
Tooth Fairy
Candidate. Tutu. Grudge.
Easter Bunny
Candidate. Working the room.
Mother Nature
Candidate. Controls everything else.
Santa: Any idiot could do this job. Elfish: And he has.
The Case
Santa is retiring tonight. Four candidates want the suit. None should be trusted with December.
Santa Claus has had enough of striking elves, demanding reindeer, frozen ornaments, and a job that comes with one working night and no retirement plan. After one final Christmas, he intends to trade the North Pole for sunshine, champagne, and a beach chair rated for dangerous curves.
His announcement produces four immediate applicants: an underappreciated deputy, a cigar-chomping fairy, a rival holiday flirt, and the woman who already controls the weather.
Santa responds with the only reasonable succession plan available—a series of audience-assisted tryouts called America’s Next Top Santa.
The candidates form alliances, offer bribes, forge documents, seduce one another, sabotage the competition, and fail every challenge with remarkable confidence. Before the new Santa can be chosen, the retirement contest becomes a murder investigation.
Santa’s last Christmas may become someone else’s first.
At a Glance
Interactive musical-comedy murder mystery
Approximately 70 minutes
3 men and 2 women
The North Pole on Christmas Eve
Coached roles, suspect questions, and Detective Cards
Four musical numbers with recorded accompaniment
Recorded music, sound effects, and portable props
Dinner theatres, fundraisers, and holiday events
One Retiring Legend and Four Unapproved Successors
The job of a lifetime is open. So is the investigation.
Santa Claus
Weary of the grind and ready to retire somewhere warm, Santa opens his own job to four wildly unqualified applicants. His hiring criteria are flexible. His departure date is not.
Elfish Prezley
Santa’s overworked second-in-command is certain decades of loyal service have earned her the promotion. She is willing to bribe reindeer, forge a doctor’s note, or cheat only as much as leadership requires.
Tooth Fairy
A tough, tutu-clad, cigar-chomping hustler who has never won Fairy of the Year. Santa’s chair could provide the visibility boost Tinkerbell has denied him.
Easter Bunny
Santa’s rival holiday mascot and an incorrigible flirt. He is more interested in working the room than the job requirements, but alliances have their uses.
Mother Nature
Newly divorced and accustomed to running the largest operation on earth, Mother Nature considers Santa’s job a manageable lateral move. No is merely a temporary weather condition.
Inside the Performance
Four volunteers enter the tryouts. Everyone else inherits the investigation.
Untangles Santa’s mixed-up gift request.
Interviews for a position on the reindeer team.
Heckle Elfish through the sleigh-hitching challenge.
Joins Mother Nature’s lap-sit challenge.
Guests receive a program, Detective Card, pen, and Character Fun Fact while the cast circulates in character before the scripted action begins.
Four coached participants join the succession tryouts: one navigates Santa’s mixed-up gift request, another interviews as a prospective reindeer, a small reindeer gang heckles the sleigh-hitching test, and one brave guest faces Mother Nature’s lap-sit challenge.
Then the contest becomes an investigation. The full audience questions the suspects, completes Detective Cards, and decides which candidate wanted the job badly enough to eliminate the competition.
The featured roles are coached comic encounters—not tests of improvisational skill. No advance preparation is required.
Recovered from the SantaCo Succession Committee
Six exhibits from a job interview no human-resources department approved.
01 / Retirement Evidence
Santa’s Retirement Kit
Effective immediately after one final Christmas.
02 / Personnel Evidence
Elfish’s Reindeer Interview
The applicant requested health insurance, a 401(k), and better company culture.
03 / Candidate Evidence
Tooth Fairy’s Apple
An apple a day keeps the dentist in business.
04 / Challenge Evidence
Easter Bunny’s Wrapping Challenge
The contestant demonstrated more interest in unwrapping.
05 / Weather Evidence
Mother Nature’s Weather Warning
The forecast calls for a hostile transition.
06 / Audience Evidence
The Audience Playbook
Four volunteers audition. The entire room decides what happened.
From the Notebook
When Bad Taste Has Rhythm
A Wii becomes a Labubu. A dead reference becomes “a Red Buttons.” Twenty-nine years of collaboration survive in the rhythm underneath the joke.
Bert’s jokes are not isolated lines. They are a performance tempo—and the cultural references can change while the comic machinery keeps running.
Read the Notebook entryAvailable for Production
Retire Santa. Audition the holidays. Try to keep Christmas alive.
Slay Ride VI is designed for five principal performers, multiple coached audience volunteers, full-room suspect questioning, Detective Cards, four musical numbers with recorded accompaniment, and a portable collection of documents, costumes, and hand props.
It is especially suited to dinner and community theatres, restaurants, fundraisers, performing-arts and civic organizations, and corporate or private holiday events.
Production Information
Put Christmas management under new investigation.
Read the complete listing, download the public excerpt, or contact Butch Maxwell Original Plays about a reading copy and production materials.
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