A Murder Mystery, Written and Performed by Residents, Takes the Stage at Passavant Community

At Passavant Community, a group of residents is plotting a murder.

They are doing it carefully. With rehearsals, rewrites, and just enough misdirection to keep an audience guessing between bites of dinner. Of course, the crime is fictional.

This is about a resident-written, resident-produced, and almost entirely resident-acted dinner theater production preparing to take the stage. It is not what most people picture when they think about life in a retirement community.

The play, Deception and Murder at Rosebud, blends historical imagination with a theatrical leap. What begins as a celebration of America’s 250th Anniversary, quickly unravels into theft, chaos, and an unexpected call to the FBI.

The plot works, that’s not the surprise. It is the people telling it.

“I thought, wouldn’t it be kind of interesting,” says resident Mark Richner, the play’s author, recalling the moment the idea took hold.

He had been watching a news segment about the upcoming Anniversary when the premise came to him: a community trying to honor Benjamin Franklin through historic documents, only to have everything go wrong.

“There was a theft, and there was a murder,” he says. “And that’s how the play kind of gelled.”

Richner had never written a play before. That is what makes this production different.

Executive Director Laura Roy has watched that process unfold up close, though her role in the production is less administrative than theatrical. In the play, she appears as an FBI agent, stepping into scenes alongside residents she would normally meet in entirely different contexts.

“For me, it’s just the opportunity to be with the residents in a different capacity other than my day-to-day responsibility,” she says. “I’ve formed friendships with them, and it’s just fun.”

Fun, in this case, carries more weight than the word usually suggests. It is about residents stepping into something unfamiliar, such as acting or performing in front of their peers.

Roy describes this particular production as special because of its origins.

“It was resident-written, it’s resident-produced, and other than one person, it’s completely resident-acted,” she says. “Mark has never written anything like that, and so to me, it’s inspiring to see someone decide, I’m going to write a play, and that the community would embrace that and support it and make it come to life.”

Linda Miller-Pretz, another Passavant resident and the play’s producer, has been there from the beginning. She has guided multiple shows to the stage at Passavant (this will be her third), and she understands that theater is as much about people as it is about the story. Her focus is not only on what happens in the script, but what happens to the actors as they “help bring the script to life.

“It gives me joy,” she says. “Watching them grow, not only in their abilities to perform, but also it builds friendships.”

Cast members gather for rehearsals, then linger afterward, working through scenes and revisiting lines. The process becomes as meaningful as the performance itself.

“It builds them,” Miller-Pretz says. “It gives them confidence… being somebody else for a change.”

They are memorizing lines, working with timing and, perhaps most significantly, allowing themselves to be seen in new ways.

The production itself is not small. There are a dozen speaking roles, additional non-speaking performers, and a network of volunteers managing everything from props to sound. Costumes, once improvised, are now coordinated. Lighting, once minimal, has grown more sophisticated.

“It’s a lot of moving parts,” Miller-Pretz says.

Owen Miller, director of the play and Multimedia Coordinator for Passavant Community, understands that complexity is not just a logistical challenge, but part of what gives the production its meaning. He has watched actors grow more comfortable on stage, seen how audiences respond, and noticed the effect extends beyond the performance itself.

“They’re not only just entertaining,” he says, “but they’re inspiring, and they’re creating a change for others, their peers, and charity.”

Audience members, particularly younger ones, are often astonished when they see people taking risks that many would hesitate to take at any age.

“They are brave,” Miller says, recalling those reactions. “They go, I’m not that age right now, but I hope if I am, that I have that much courage.”

Richner, who not only wrote the play but also acts in it, describes the process with a mix of humility and anticipation.

“I enjoy the process,” he says. “Sometimes it’s kind of unnerving, crazy, hectic, but I enjoy it.”

He pauses when asked what it will feel like to see the play performed in front of an audience.

“That’s going to be my reward,” he says.

The performances, scheduled for May 1 and May 2, will include dinner, conversation, and, somewhere along the way, a fictional crime that draws everyone in. The proceeds will support the community’s auxiliary fund, tying the event back to a broader purpose.

By the time opening night arrives, most of the work will already be behind them.

“It’s just evidence of what caliber of residents we have,” Miller says, “and their passion for this process and for each other in this community.”