Butler Little Theatre readies performance of “Arsenic and Old Lace”
The Butler Little Theatre will be showing Joseph Kesselring’s “Arsenic and Old Lace” from Friday, Sept. 22, to Sept. 30.
The show, produced by Sue Collar and directed by Dennis Casey, follows the story of elderly sisters Abby and Martha Brewster, played by Nedra Casey and Gail Suhr respectively, who have developed the habit of poisoning elderly men interested in renting a room in their home. The two women view this as doing a kindness, believing that they are sparing these men from living lonely lives by killing and burying them in their cellar.
The play was written in 1939 and became very popular on Broadway in the early 1940s, with a movie adaptation starring Cary Grant in 1944.
According to Collar, BLT first performed this show in 1947 and is well known and enjoyed by the BLT audience.
“I’ve always been dramatic, even as a little girl,” Nedra Casey said on how she got started in acting at age 15. “I would be down in my basement and my mother would say, ‘Who’s down there with you?’
“And I would say, ‘It’s just me.’ I was just doing a whole bunch of different voices. My mother suggested I go down and try something in the theatre.”
Since then, Nedra Casey has performed throughout high school and college, even minoring in drama, and has continued throughout her adult life.
Dennis and Nedra Casey, a husband and wife duo, have been acting since the mid-1960s.
“I love to be directed by my husband; it’s the only time he gets to tell me what to do!” Nedra Casey said.
Living with the Brewster sisters in the play is one of their nephews, Teddy Brewster, played by Thom Hilliard, a fellow who believes that he is President Theodore Roosevelt. His aunts use this belief to their advantage, having him dig graves in the cellar as if he were digging the Panama Canal.
“Every time (Teddy) comes on stage, he’s just a major bit of comic relief,” Hilliard said. “What the sisters are doing is pretty serious stuff. When people see Teddy come on stage, I want them to think, ‘Oh, something funny is going to happen.’”
Hilliard has done shows with the BLT for 16 years.
“I’ve seen the movie, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to be in the show because I like doing comedies,” Hilliard said.
Abby and Martha’s 12th victim is discovered by Teddy’s brother, Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic, played by Sam Thinnes, after he proposes to his girlfriend, Elaine Harper, the girl next door and reverend’s daughter, played by Kyrie Lokhaiser. After Mortimer discovers the body in the window seat and learns of what his aunts have been doing, the longest night of his life only gets crazier.
“I think (my character) adds a bit of down-to-earth sweetness and a bit of obliviousness as the outside characters think that these two sweet ladies are just so sane and wonderful, meanwhile, they have been murdering old gentlemen for how many years,” Lokhaiser said.
This is the first year with the BLT for Thinnes, after he took a three-year acting hiatus. Previously, he performed in several shows while attending Knoch High School.
“If you like craziness, humor and mayhem, this is definitely a show to come see,” Thinnes said. “It’s got everything: it’s got gravitas, it’s got wittiness, it’s got quick one-liners.”
While Mortimer struggles to decide what to do, the bodies pile up when Mortimer and Teddy’s estranged and violent brother, Jonathan Brewster, played by Steve Kalina, returns home to continue his own killing spree with his accomplice, Dr. Einstein, a plastic surgeon with a drinking problem, played by the director, Dennis Casey.
“I’ve never done it before, (and) I’ll never do it again; it’s very hard,” Dennis Casey said on directing and starring in the same show. “The other folks ... I can’t give them enough focus and enough robust criticism on what they are doing.”
While he enjoys producing this show, he said his favorite part is watching the new talent joining the Butler Little Theatre, specifically Thinnes' performance as Mortimer.
“People talk about this as a comedy, it’s really a farce, so it requires somebody who is willing to let loose and lose control a little bit, which he does really well,” Dennis Casey said. “I enjoy watching him do that, and he’s good at it. For a young guy, that takes more talent than people would give him credit for. It’s not just simply dashing around stage and yelling real loud; it takes talent to do what he does.”
In addition to Thinnes, two other faces are gracing the BLT stage for the first time: Jordan Grady and Joe Marra, who play Lieutenant Rooney and Officer O’Hara, respectively.
“I haven’t missed a show since (I was) 19, watching, and I basically have the reputation to say ‘yes’ to anything so when they called and asked if I wanted to do this, I didn’t think, I just said ‘yes,’” Grady said. “I love this little place and figured that if I could help, I would do it.”
While this is Marra’s first BLT show, he comes with some acting experience under his belt. A current acting student at Butler County Community College hoping to attend Slippery Rock University, Marra has done some character work with the Lewisburg Haunted Cave as well as being an amateur magician, professional wrestling referee and more.
Acting was not Marra’s first calling. He is a Navy and Army veteran and a retired truck driver.
“Through (doing) those other things, I found that I really enjoyed entertaining people,” Marra said.
In this farcical black comedy, murder becomes a family affair.
“This part in particular was kind of a bucket list part for me because I always get cast as evil; they never cast me as anything else so I thought (that) this is the pinnacle of my evil career,” Kalina said.
This play was based on Amy Archer-Gilligan, a woman who killed more than 60 people in her nursing home-boarding house in Windsor, Conn., between 1908 and 1916.
“I think that for anybody who is a fan of true crime, which with social media, Netflix and Hulu, everybody is a true crime addict now, and this was one of the original true crime stories,” Kalina said. “It’s relevant today as it was back then; it’s actually based on a true story. It’s an interesting concept for any true crime fan and any fan of dark comedy.”
WHO: Butler Little Theatre
WHAT: “Arsenic and Old Lace”
WHEN: Sept. 22 to 30, at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. The usual 2:30 p.m. Sunday performance is sold out.
WHERE: BLT, 1 Howard St., Butler
TICKETS: $15 at butlerlittletheatre.com
