Lucien Hartt, left, plays Banjo, a character based on Harpo Marx, while Sal Sanzo, right, portrays Sheridan Whiteside, an obnoxious radio wit based on Alexander Woolcott, a famous radio personality of his time.
(SOMERS POINT, NJ) -- Gateway Playhouse in Somers Point will kick off its 2025 Mainstage Season with the George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart comedy classic The Man Who Came to Dinner. The play will run one weekend only, April 4-6, 2025.
Originally set in the 1930s in a small town in Ohio in the weeks leading up to Christmas, the play relays the story of a famously outlandish New York City radio wit, Sheridan Whiteside, who is invited to the house of a well-to-do factory owner, Ernest W. Stanley, and his family. Prior to entering the house, Whiteside slips on ice outside, injuring his hip and thus confining him to the Stanleys' home for an indeterminate amount of time.
Directed and selected by Ryan Daly of Egg Harbor Township, Daly was introduced to the play when he portrayed Whiteside in a production while at Atlantic County Community College.
“It’s just a hilarious show, it’s so much fun,” Daly says. “It has great writing and great characters that are actually based on real people. It’s a fantastic show – I love it.”
Playwrights Kaufman and Hart were part of the now-infamous Algonquin Round Table, along with the likes of Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx and Alexander Woolcott, a sometime actor and playwright, as well as an outspoken radio personality. Woolcott was the inspiration for the obnoxious Whiteside character.
Daly, who is setting the show in the 1940s, says that you can really set it in any era with just a few simple reference changes to make it more prevalent to the time. Regardless of when it takes place, Daly says it is still relevant to today’s audiences and is considered one of the funniest American comedies.
Many in the large cast performed in the Gateway’s sold-out production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Gateway last spring, such as Alissa Dirato (Maggie Cutler), Elizabeth Volpe (Mrs. Stanley), Jim Maher (Mr. Stanley), Dave Somers (Dr. Bradley), Allison Parlin (Lorraine Sheldon), and Lucien Hartt (Banjo, based on Harpo Marx). New to both Daly and the Gateway is Sal Sanzo, who plays the wheelchair-confined lead Whiteside. The cast also includes Daly’s daughter Audrey Daly, 9, and niece Flora Supal, 10.
Daly says that this Kaufman and Hart play is the type of show that can direct itself.
“With Shakespeare, for example, you have a blank slate to do and create what you want,” he says. “This play has so many stage directions (written in). So I am allowing the actors to improv and feel their way around and try different things. I’m giving them freedom to find what works and what feels right.”
Performances take place Friday and Saturday, April 4-5 at 7:00pm, and Sunday, April 6 at 2:00pm. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at GatewayByTheBay.org or the Karen S. Sutherland Box Office at Gateway Playhouse, 738 Bay Ave. in Somers Point, New Jersey.
Since its reopening in 2017, Gateway Playhouse, a 501-(c)3 nonprofit, has provided quality and affordable year-round entertainment to residents and visitors alike, as well as offered educational opportunities to grammar and high school students, in the hopes of creating future generations of actors, directors and audiences. Aside from an annual mainstage season, the Gateway also produces a variety of comedy and cabaret shows throughout the year. As the saying goes, “see you at the Gateway!”
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