The Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre premieres its eighth season of Script-in-Hand performances – a series of classic comedies called Exit Laughing – with Joseph Kesselring’s perennially popular Arsenic and Old Lace.

This 1941 Broadway black comedy centers on a New York theater critic who discovers his two spinster aunts have been poisoning “unhappy” men and burying them in the basement of their home in Brooklyn. Kesselring based the play’s setting on the boarding house in which he lived while teaching at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas.

Sponsored by Country Club Bank with additional support provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The receptions for members of the Friends of the Kansas City Public Library that follow each performance are provided by Cosentino’s Market. You may join the Friends during any of the events and attend the reception the day you sign up.