Archive

Identifier: MANTODINNER2000

Inclusive Dates: 2000

Extent:

Production Files documenting the inaugural production at the newly renovated American Airlines Theatre, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's The Man Who Came to Dinner, in 2000.  Directed by Jerry Zaks, with set design by Tony Walton, costume design by William Ivey Long, lighting design by Paul Gallo, sound design by Peter Fitzgerald, and hair and wig design by Paul Huntley.  

The production starred Nathan Lane as Sheridan Whiteside and Jean Smart as Lorraine Sheldon; with Harriet Harris as Maggie Cutler, Terry Beaver as Mr. Stanley, Stephen DeRosa as Professor Metz, William Duell as Dr. Bradley, Byron Jennings as Beverly Carlton, Lewis J. Stadlen as Banjo, Linda Stephens as Mrs. Stanley, Hank Stratton as Bert Jefferson, Mary Catherine Wright as Miss Preen, Mary Catherine Garrison as June Stanley, Ruby Holbrook as Harriet Stanley, Zach Shaffer as Richard Stanley, Ryan Shively as Sandy, and Andre Steve Thompson as Prisoner/Radio Technician/Expressman.  Other cast members included Ian Blackman as Prisoner/Expressman/Mr. Westcott/Police Officer, Julie Boyd as Sarah, Kit Flanagan as Mrs. Dexter, Julie Halston as Mrs. McCutcheon, Jeffrey Hayenga as John, Michael Bakkensen as Prisoner/Expressman/Deputy, and Hans Hoffman as Prison Guard/Radio Technician/Deputy; all of the above also acted as understudies.  Other understudies included Robert Ari, Michael McKenzie, Kathleen McKiernan, Brian Schreier and Amelia Nickles.  Jack Arendt, Zachary Eden Bernhard, Jozef Fahey, Brandon Perry, Matthew Salvatore, and Ryan Torino played Choir Boys; Jean Smart's son Connor Gilliland was an understudy Choir Boy for three performances during the run.

2001 Awards:
Tony Award, Best Actress in a Play, Jean Smart (nominee)
Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play, Lewis J. Stadlen (nominee)

George Kaufman and Moss Hart's play The Man Who Came to Dinner is set in the 1930s in the small town of Mesalia, Ohio.  It is just before Christmas; visiting celebrity New Yorker and radio personality extraordinare Sheridan "Sherry" Whiteside, 'intimate friend of the great and near great', slips on the icy doorstep of the well-to-do, solid, stodgy, Stanley family and moves in for a few weeks to recuperate.  Craziness ensues as the Stanley's children run off on exotic adventures with Sherry's encouragement, his glamorous city friends arrive to pay their respects and wreak havoc on the small provincial town, and generally the house is overturned in the service of one man's ego.  
Sherry also befriends local newspaper man and aspiring playwright Bert Jefferson, but when Sherry's long-time faithful secretary Maggie Cutler falls in love with Bert and talks about leaving her job to marry him, Sherry concocts a scheme to break up the foundling romance, involving his bizarre city friends and an Egyptian mummy case which has been delivered to Sherry as a Christmas gift from the Khedive of Egypt; of course nothing goes quite according to plan. 

The Man Who Came to Dinner was the inaugural production at the American Airlines Theatre; a staged reading with much of the original cast was performed in December 2015 as part of Roundabout's 50th Anniversary Season.
 

Production Files span two Hollinger boxes containing 21 folders, two Stagebills, marketing flyers, a black-and-white photographic print featuring Nathan Lane and Jean Smart announcing the PBS broadcast of the taped production, and the costume fittings bible.

Digital holding on the Archive 1 server include the following folders:
Costume Fittings Bible (scanned by Archives, originals in the Production Files)
Education
Media
Opening Night Gift
Playbill (39 jpeg scans, including articles about the renovation of the American Airlines Theatre and the Roundabout's concurrent production of Cabaret)
Press (Archive-scanned selects)
Production Photographs
Script
Set Design
Show Art

There is a related collection of marketing materials on the Marketing shelves.   Contracts have been removed, including some related to the PBS taping, and housed in the Contracts cabinets; these are confidential and access is restricted.

There are two blueprint scenic draftings in the flat file drawers; one is a ground plan, the other an elevation.

Access Restrictions: Open and available to approved researchers by appointment only. See folder details for specific restrictions.

Preferred Citation: The Man Who Came to Dinner 2000, Roundabout Theatre Company Archive