The Man Who Came to Dinner

About the show

The play is set in the small town of Mesalia, Ohio in the weeks leading to Christmas in the late 1930s. The famously outlandish New York City radio wit Sheridan Whiteside ('Sherry' to his friends) is invited to dine at the house of the well-to-do factory owner Ernest W. Stanley and his family. But before Whiteside can enter the house, he slips on a patch of ice outside the Stanleys' front door and injures his hip. Confined to the Stanleys' home, Whiteside is looked after by several professionals: Dr. Bradley, the absent-minded town physician, Miss Preen, his frantic nurse, and Maggie Cutler, his faithful secretary. Confined to the house for a month, Whiteside drives his hosts mad by viciously insulting them, monopolizing their house and staff, running up large phone bills, and receiving many bizarre guests, including paroled convicts, and the eccentric Professor Metz, who brings him a glass-encased cockroach colony. Although he earns the intense dislike of Mr. Stanley, Whiteside manages to befriend his adult children, June and Richard, as well as his wildly eccentric older sister, Harriet Stanley. He also befriends local newspaperman and aspiring playwright Bert Jefferson but soon learns that Maggie has fallen in love with Bert, and plans to leave her job to marry him. Unable to bear the thought of losing his secretary, Whiteside invites his friend, the glamorous and loose-living actress Lorraine Sheldon, to Mesalia to look at Bert's new play, hoping she can break up the marriage plans. Dr. Bradley tells Whiteside he was mistaken in his diagnosis, and Whiteside is well enough to leave. Whiteside buys the doctor's silence by pretending to want to work on a book with him, and for the rest of the play keeps brushing him off. Whiteside encourages June Stanley to elope with a young union organizer whom her father disapproves of, and Richard to run away and pursue his dream of becoming a photographer. Lorraine arrives, and Maggie instantly suspects Whiteside's efforts to interfere with her and Bert. Whiteside and Maggie then receive a visit from their friend, noted British actor and playwright Beverly Carlton. Maggie learns Beverly can do a great impression of Lord Bottomley, an English lord whom Lorraine is desperate to marry. She gets Beverly to call Lorraine from the train station and pretend to be Lord Bottomley proposing, to get Lorraine to leave. However, Whiteside soon sees through the ruse and when Lorraine realizes Maggie's involvement, she starts to seduce Bert as revenge. The next day, Christmas, Bert is enthralled with Lorraine, and Maggie, hurt by Whiteside's betrayal, tells him she is quitting. Feeling guilty, Sherry tries to think of a way to get Lorraine out of Mesalia. He gets help from an unexpected visit by his friend, movie comedian Banjo. Mr. Stanley, however, furious at Whiteside's interference with his family, has now ordered Sherry's eviction from the house and gives him fifteen minutes to leave. All looks hopeless until an Egyptian mummy case is delivered to Whiteside (a Christmas gift from the Khedive of Egypt). Whiteside and Banjo manage to trick Lorraine into the mummy case and shut her inside. Sherry then sees a photo of Harriet Stanley when she was younger, and recognizes her as a famous axe murderer. Using this information, he blackmails Mr. Stanley into helping them get the case onto Banjo's plane. Whiteside now stands, telling Maggie she is free to marry Bert and prepares to return to New York by train. 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.