Coming Soon: “The Man Who Came to Dinner”
The Uptown Theatre in the First Street Community Center in Mount Vernon, Iowa is pleased to host the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Theatre’s production of: The Man Who Came to Dinner, a comedy by Moss Hart & George S. Kaufman.
Performances are March 5-7 at 7:30pm, and March 8th at 2pm.
Tickets are $12 for Adults, $10 for Students and Seniors. Tickets are on sale at CarePro Pharmacy and the Lisbon Public Library.
Call (319) 535-2030 to reserve your tickets today!
The following description is adapted from Wikipedia’s article:
The play is set in the small town of Mesalia, Ohio in the weeks leading up to Christmas in the 1930s. An outlandish radio personality Sheridan Whiteside (aka: ‘Sherry’) is having dinner at the home of Ernest W. Stanley and his family.
Before Sherry enters the house, he slips on a patch of ice and breaks his hip. He is confined to the Stanley house for a month to recover. During this time he insults his hosts, takes over their house and staff, runs up huge phone bills, and receives many unusual guests & presents (convicts, penguins and an octopus). In addition, Sherry manages to befriend the Stanleys’ children and Mr. Stanley’s eccentric older sister Harriet.
He also becomes friends with the local newspaper man, an aspiring playwright, Bert Jefferson. Sherry’s secretary, Maggie, falls in love with Bert. Unwilling to lose his secretary to something so trivial as marriage; Sherry invites an actress friend, Lorraine Sheldon, to Messalia to look at Bert’s play. Sherry hopes Lorraine can break up the marriage.
As Christmas nears, Sherry encourages the Stanley’s daughter, June Stanley, to elope, and their son, Richard to run away to become a photographer. Meanwhile the tangled web surrounding Sherry, Maggie, Bert and Lorraine becomes even more complicated and hilarious.
Christmas Day arrives, Bert is now in love with Lorraine. Maggie, hurt by Sherry’s betrayal, tells him she is quitting anyhow. Sherry showing a sliver of humanity now schemes to get Lorraine out of Messalia. His host, Mr. Stanley, furious at Sherry’s interference with his family, orders Sherry’s eviction from the house and gives him fifteen minutes to leave.
All looks hopeless until an Egyptian mummy case is delivered to Sherry (a Christmas gift from the Khedive of Egypt). Sherry manages to trick Lorraine into the mummy case and shuts her inside. He blackmails Mr. Stanley into helping them get the mummy case with Lorraine inside onto a plane to go on a world-tour.
Sherry later “miraculously” stands, telling Maggie she is free to marry Bert, and goes to return to New York. Unfortunately, as he is leaving the house, he slips on another patch of ice, injuring himself again. He is carried back inside the house screaming as the curtain falls.
“King Penguins” – Photo by D-Stanley
“The Golden Face of Panehsy” – Photo by j. kunst
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