ACAT to stage 'Man Who Came to Dinner'

Friday, November 11, 2005

WATERVILLE -- Aqua City Actor's Theatre (ACAT) is proud to present the classic comedy "The Man Who Came to Dinner" by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. Performances are tonight and Saturday and Nov. 17-19 at the Waterville Opera House Studio Theater in The Center.

The play is set in a small town in Ohio in December. Famous and outlandish orator Sheridan Whiteside (Ron Veno) has been invited to dinner at the house of the well-off Stanley family (George Dunn and Sheila Shay). As he is leaving, he slips on a patch of ice outside the house and is injured. Dr. Bradley (Sumner Hayward), the town physician, is sent for and his diagnosis comes back as a broken leg that will require several days of rest. The Stanleys, intimidated by Whiteside's threats of legal prosecution, offer their living room up as a place for him to park his wheelchair.

As Whiteside moves in, his secretary, Miss Maggie Cutler (Leslie Stein), falls for the local newspaper editor, Bert Jefferson (Rob Coates), who had dropped by to interview Whiteside and to show off his own play idea to the Broadway mogul. Whiteside becomes insanely jealous over this and plots to break it up. Meanwhile, the doctor returns with the news that he misread Whiteside's X-ray, and that Whiteside is perfectly fine. Whiteside, attached to his scheme to separate Maggie and Bert, bribes the doctor to hide the "good" news by promising to publish his novel, "Forty Years an Ohio Doctor."

Whiteside sends for his old friend, actress Lorraine Sheldon (Lynn Truman), luring her to the sleepy town with the promise of a new play opportunity. The new play, of course, is the one that Bert had introduced earlier. Sheldon shows up and goes off with Bert, aggravating Maggie, who suspects Whiteside the whole time. Can Whiteside's eccentric friend Will Banjo (Mark Nadeau) patch up Maggie and Bert's relationship?

"The Man Who Came to Dinner" is directed by Doree Austin. The rest of the cast include David Carter, Gabriella Van Horn, Maria Conners, Peter Paton, Ryan Tracy, Don Chimera, Chaz Darnish, Georgetta Q. Spelvin, Margaret Harvey, Gaylord Day Weston and Kate Sanborn.

Tickets are $12 and $10 for seniors and students.

For reservations, call 580-6783 or via e-mail at acatanswers@hot mail.com. For more information on this show, visit