By Teri Mott

The Guild Hall Players is launching its 21st season with four productions at St. James Episcopal Church in Wichita.

“There is a thread running through these scripts that connects them: tyranny and how people respond to it,” said Phil Speary, artistic director and chair of the company's leadership team.

The opening show, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s 1939 comedy “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” is a hilarious example of one form of tyranny: a household grappling with a demanding guest forced to overstay his welcome due to an accident. The show runs November 19-22; Speary and Jeremy Buoy will co-direct.

“The script was based on a a radio celebrity known for taking over situations, terrorizing people, and demanding his own way,” Speary explained. Kaufman and Hart were lovingly mocking one of their closest friends, Alexander Wollcott. They had experienced his outrageous behavior firsthand when he paid an unexpected visit to Hart’s house. The playwrights incorporated Woollcott’s massive ego and brutal communication style into the main character, Sheridan Whiteside. Now one of the best known characters in a frequently produced play, Whiteside — who will be portrayed by Dan Schuster — is also one of the most irascible and maddening. 

With a cast of more than 20, the play features other characters based on well-known personalities, including Noel Coward and Harpo Marx. Chelsie Penner plays Whiteside’s brash assistant, the only one with enough nerve to stand up to him.

“It’s one of the funniest and sharpest shows ever written,” Speary said. “We are having a blast with it because it stays funny, even to the cast, no matter how much you work on it.”

“The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,” adapted by actor and director Joe Parrish from the epic novel by Charles Dickens, runs March 18-21, 2027. Schuster will direct, working with Parrish to tell the story of the heroic young man who stands up to his greedy, vengeful uncle and finds love and redemption in 1830s England.

“My interest in 'Nicholas Nickleby' began when I saw the eight-and-a-half-hour version by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Los Angeles,” Parrish recalled. “I didn't know the novel, but it was the greatest experience I've ever had in a theater. Those hours went by in a snap. Wow!”

The RSC production covered the entire novel, and “a lot of characters were also narrators; they narrated from the novel,” Parrish said, “It was a sort of readers' theater story style, and I loved it.

“I wanted to share it with my students in some way, but we couldn’t do eight and a half hours in a high school.” He sought the same style as the RSC production in a much briefer timeframe. “I watched the old movie version, which is about two hours long, and gleaned a way we could tell Nicholas's story while making it more compact.”

Parrish produced the script with his high school students and at a community theater in California. “It doesn't duplicate the experience that I had watching it for eight and a half hours, but it gives you a little taste of it, and it will be a fun challenge.”

Parrish and Schuster are customizing the show for the Guild Hall Players. Between 12 and 20 actors will make up the cast, and decisions will be made about settings, costumes, accents, and other details that have to fit together seamlessly to tell the complex story. The show runs March 18-21, 2027.

One of America’s greatest domestic dramas, Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” will be staged May 27-30, 2027. Phil Speary and Dan Schuster will co-direct the saga of an aging father and husband facing the tyranny of time, the end of his career, and the vanishing of his dreams.

“It’s such a deeply human script,” Speary said. “I think it's always compelling to people, and it's such a complex situation: that family dynamic, Willie and Linda and their two adult sons. Linda says it most directly, ‘Attention must be paid.’ I think that's one of the greatest lines in history. Ever. Everyone, whatever their situation, demands respect and attention.”

“Phil says he thinks of me as kind of an optimistic director,” Schuster said. “Even with dark scripts, I'm trying to find some optimism, something light. Phil can sometimes go a little toward the dark. I look forward to a nice balance.”

This will be the first time Speary and Schuster have co-directed. “I've been directed by him multiple times and we work together a lot,” said Schuster, “But we've never directed together — and I can’t wait for the opportunity.”

The season’s closing production is Jerry Herman's “Dear World,” a musical version of the poetic and political satire “The Madwoman of Chaillot” written in 1943 by French dramatist Jean Giraudoux. Music and lyrics are by Herman; the book is by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. It is adapted by Maurice Valency and David Thompson.

In this romantic musical by the composer of “Hello Dolly” and “Mame,” a trio of eccentric older ladies in post-World War II Paris band together to stop ruthless tycoons from destroying their beloved environment. “It ties into the tyranny concept because unscrupulous industrialists want to tear up the streets and tear down the buildings in Paris after World War II to drill for oil. The street people, led by the Mad Woman, stop them,” said Speary, who will co-direct with John Dalton White.

“Herman had had huge success with ‘Hello Dolly’ and then with ‘Mame.’ He wanted to do a chamber musical, something more intimate. And he really loved ‘The Madwoman of Chaillot,’ so he created this small show that was probably intended to be off-Broadway. Then his producers told him, Oh no, this has to be, you know, ‘Hello Dolly’ or ‘Mame’ part three. This has to be a circus with a big cast, big sets, a big production.’ And although Angela Lansbury won the Tony Award for it, the show flopped. In response, Herman took his material back and said, I'm going to write this the way I want it.” 

It's now a small show with three diminutive locales, a cast of 12, and orchestration that emulates a Parisian street band. 

“Last year, Guild Hall did ‘Sound of Music,’ our biggest cast, our biggest production ever, and it was marvelous,” Speary said. “John and I had a wonderful time, and we wanted to do a musical that was smaller and different.”

“I'm really looking forward to it because it's not my typical type of show; I generally stick closer to Broadway classics,” Dalton said. “We’re delving into something that hasn't been done here, and I love that. We’ll do it with a very close-knit family of actors on stage. The audience will be seated in the cafe where it takes place.” Jerry Herman’s “Dear World” takes place July 22-25, 2027.

When seeking scripts for the Guild Hall season, Speary and his leadership team — which this season includes Dalton-White, Schuster, tech director Randy Harrison, and properties designer Louise Brinegar — consult and consider the theater’s audience before choosing the plays.

“We also look to make people think, and offer issues that people will grapple with,” Speary said. “The shows might be funny, but they are not just fluff. The audience will take away something that is clearly of value. We are also working in the context of a church environment, you know. We don't limit ourselves in terms of adult themes but also are sensitive to not doing something that’s nihilistic or really dark and pessimistic.”

Actors who wish to audition can follow the Guild Hall Players page on Facebook for details.

And here’s some good news: Reservations for the company’s shows can now be made online on the St. James Episcolpal’s website. 

The Details

Guild Hall Players 2026-27 Season

“The Man Who Came to Dinner”: November 19-22

Charles Dickens’ “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby,” adapted by Joe Parrish: March 18-21, 2027

“Death of a Salesman”: May 27-30, 2027

Jerry Herman’s “Dear World: July 22-25, 2027

Shows take place 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 7 p.m. Sundays at St. James Epicopal Church, 3750 E. Douglas Ave. in Wichita

General admission tickets are $15; $12 for students and members of the military.

Learn more and buy tickets or make reservations online.

Teri Mott is a writer and actor in Wichita, Kansas, where she covers the arts as a critic and feature writer. She is co-founder of The SHOUT.

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