The Resident Ensemble Players, the University of Delaware’s resident professional acting company, presents the comedy classic Arsenic and Old Lace, from Nov. 3 through Nov. 20, in the Thompson Theatre in the Roselle Center for the Arts. Ticketing information is at rep.udel.edu.

Drama critic Mortimer Brewster discovers that his seemingly sweet old aunts have a nasty habit of poisoning lonely old men with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with "arsenic, strychnine, and just a pinch of cyanide", and then burying them in the cellar of their Brooklyn home.

Adding to the madness are Mortimer’s crazy brothers, Teddy, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt, and Jonathan, a homicidal fugitive who looks like Frankenstein’s monster thanks to a botched plastic surgery. The resulting chaos still makes for an uproarious farce filled with laugh-out-loud dialogue and side-splitting plot twists as Mortimer struggles to cope with his outrageous family.

Director J.R. Sullivan explained why audiences still love Arsenic and Old Lace: “The craftsmanship on it is so clean, so clear, and so precise. In this play, there are no wasted words, no wasted moments, nothing in there for the sake of a joke, nothing that isn’t integral to the moment. These are the things that make it a great play.”

Performance dates: Performances begin Thursday, Nov. 3, and run through Sunday, Nov. 20, in the Thompson Theatre at the Roselle Center for the Arts on the University of Delaware’s Newark campus.

How to purchase tickets: Call the REP Box Office at (302) 831-2204. Visit the REP Box Office in person at the Roselle Center for the Arts. Purchase tickets online at https://www.rep.udel.edu/.