The Man Who Came to Dinner

By Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman

Directed by John Graef
November 11, 12 and 13, 1982
Old Boardtown Cafeteria

Featuring – Bob Alred, Larry Alred, Pat Alred, John Baine, Nita Bishop, David Bouchillon, Leonard Brandon, Catherin Conroy, Justin Conroy, David Cook, Steven Dewberry, Bob Fritzius, Eric Fritzius, Kevin Graef, Kathryn Green, E. O. Hawkins, Pat Kelly, Jeri Mangum, Steve Martin, Joan McMinn, Phil Mitchell, Jay Perry, John Perry, Denise Ragsdale, Raggy Ragsdale, Peter Shillingsburg, Edith Teasley, Holly Tramel, Norman Tramel, Kandasamy Veeramany, Ron Walker, Gatha Wallace, and Tom Wellborn

As the play opens, Mr. Sheridan Whiteside - world-renowned journalist, lecturer and radio broadcaster - has been laid up with a fractured hip while a guest in a small-town Ohio home. Still threatening lawsuits over the injury he received by slipping on the front porch, Whiteside antagonizes the household with his many demands, and commandeers the library, kitchen, and living and dining rooms for his own private use.

Soon Whiteside's gang of glitterati descend upon the house, bringing all kinds of eccentric gifts along with their Hollywood personalities. Whiteside, meanwhile, is pestered by a local doctor (turned author) and a local newspaperman who has written a play. When Whiteside learns that his treasured secretary has fallen in love with the newspaperman, he hatches a devious scheme to break up the budding romance.

"The Man Who Came to Dinner" is both a satire of and a love-letter to the literary and pop-culture celebrities of its day. Whiteside is modeled on Alexander Woollcott, a friend of the authors and one-time drama critic at the New York Times, who parlayed his success as a reviewer into a career as a lecturer, writer and broadcaster.

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