Arsenic & Old Lace

Two sweet old ladies. A deadly recipe. A hilarious farce.

Tugun Theatre Company is thrilled to present Joseph Kesselring’s timeless dark comedy classic, Arsenic & Old Lace. Renowned as one of Broadway's most enduring and laugh-out-loud theatrical masterpieces, this riotous show blends eccentric characters, razor-sharp wit, and wildly chaotic misadventure.

The story revolves around Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic who seems to have it all, until he makes a shocking discovery at his sweet aunts' home in Brooklyn. His charming, devoutly religious aunts, Abby and Martha, have taken it upon themselves to "relieve" lonely old bachelors of their suffering by serving them a glass of homemade elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch of cyanide." Add an eccentric brother who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt digging the Panama Canal in the cellar, and an estranged criminal brother who returns with a sinister new face, and Mortimer finds himself caught in a madcap race to keep his family out of the asylum and the police at bay!

First premiering in 1941, Arsenic & Old Lace has delighted generations of theatre lovers with its brilliant slapstick humor and macabre charm, proving that family dysfunction can be an absolute scream.