The Man Who Came to Dinner is about a celebrity that wears out his welcome at a middle classed house during the Great Depression. Sheridan Whiteside, a famous radio personality, is stranded at the Stanley house after slipping on an iced-over side walk. Whiteside completely takes over the house, tells the children to follow their dreams, recruits the kitchen staff for his help, and turns the house hold up side down with all the exotic gifts that he receivesfrom other adoring celebrities.
Whiteside, played by James Black, enters on to the stage as a bickering, boisterous baby. Some one who is accustomed to getting his way and isn’t accustomed to staying in one place for more than a few days. With just himself to think of, Whiteside plots and executes a plan to get his assistant Maggie Cutler, played by Josie de Guzman, to forget that she has fallen in love with young journalist and playwright, Bert Jefferson, played by Todd Waite.
All the excitement comes to a climax when he gets actress Lorraine Sheldon, played by Elizabeth Heflin, to seduce Jefferson away.
Because the play was written in 1939 by George D. Kaufman and Moss Hart some of the references and name dropping might have been lost to a younger audience, but every one knew who Walt Disney and Mahatma Ghandi were.
The play did have full character development, Whiteside had to let Maggi go find her own happiness, and the Stanley children finally had the courage to break away from what their father wanted, and were able to do what would make them happy.
The play was inspired by an actual event that happened to Kaufman. Alexander Woollcott, a critic for The New Yorker, showed up at Kaufman’s house one night unannounced, because Kaufman already had guest for the night, he asked his friend Hart if Woollcott could stay at his house down the street.
Woollcott terrorized the house hold staff and ran off a producer, Max Gordan, during his stay.
When Hart had told Kaufman what had happened, Hart had said “wouldn’t it be awful if he had broken his leg and was on my hands for the entire summer?” and The Man Who Came to Dinner was born.
