Hinsdale Central stages 'Arsenic and Old Lace'

When you're sitting around the Thanksgiving table wondering how your crazy relatives could possibly be related to you, just be glad you're not Mortimer Brewster. Things could be a lot worse.

After all, Brewster, the hero in "Arsenic and Old Lace," may be the last sane member of a long, prestigious line now populated by homicidal maniacs.

Hinsdale Central High School's Drama Group brings the dark farce to stage Friday and Saturday, Nov. 13 and 14.

The Brewster family may have arrived on the Mayflower, but now drama critic Mortimer Brewster's relatives have developed some unusual hobbies. His spinster aunts welcome lonely old men into their home, only to murder them by serving poisoned homemade wine.

Meanwhile, his brother believes himself to be Theodore Roosevelt, digging locks for the Panama Canal in the cellar (and unwittingly providing graves for the aunts' gentlemen callers).

Another murderous brother has had plastic surgery to hide his identity by looking like Boris Karloff. And Mortimer must try to protect his aunts while wooing his love interest.

The cast of "Arsenic and Old Lace" features Molly Awalt, Stuart Burkhart, Declan Casey, Katie Connelly, Jack Franco, Sasha Kuznetsov, Jimmy Lee, Sam Rasmussen, Nick Speziale, Page Weaver, Ryan Yapp, Jake Youngman and Carlo Zenner.

The curtain goes up in the auditorium at Hinsdale Central, 5500 S. Grant St., Hinsdale. Tickets, $7, are available at the door or by calling the box office at (630) 570-8365.