Arsenic and Old Lace, the classic American comedy by Joseph Kesserling, will be produced and performed by Theatre on the Road. Comedy, plot twists, make this a can’t-miss performance of this famed Broadway play!
Meet Abby and Martha Brewster, two charming elderly sisters who poison lonely old men to send them to a better place, in Theatre on the Road’s production of the Joseph Kesselring classic comedy Arsenic and Old Lace. One evening performance is scheduled at Unison Arts Center on August 3rd.
Arsenic and Old Lace, a play that first opened in 1941 with Hollywood and Broadway legend Boris Karloff in the cast, became one of Broadway’s longest running plays, filled with colorful characters and witty plot twists.
The play’s hilarious plot unfolds when the Brewster sisters serve their guests a concoction of elderberry wine laced with arsenic and they enlist the aid of their nephew Teddy, a robust fellow who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, to bury the bodies in their cellar. When nephew and theatre critic Mortimer discovers a body, high comedy ensues as he attempts to hide his aunt’s unusual activities from his fiancée, his vengeful brother, a crazed plastic surgeon, and the local police.
Theatre on the Road founder Frank Marquette will direct this eccentric comedy. “Producing and directing Arsenic and Old Lace is a privilege and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. No doubt my 35 years of theatre experience has brought me to this moment I will be bringing something fresh to a script that hardly needs updating or improvement, for starters some of the roles will no longer be gender specific,” says Marquette.
