Whitefish Bay High School presents “Harvey” by Mary Chase

When Elwood P. Dowd starts to introduce his imaginary friend, Harvey, a six-and-a-half-foot rabbit, to guests at a society party, his sister, Veta, has seen as much of his eccentric behavior as she can tolerate.  She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium to spare her daughter, Myrtle Mae, and their family from future embarrassment.  Problems arise, however, when Veta herself is mistakenly assumed to be on the verge of lunacy when she explains to doctors that years of living with Elwood’s hallucination have caused her to see Harvey also!  The doctors commit Veta instead of Elwood, but when the truth comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion.  When he shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend Harvey, it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood’s delusion has had a strange influence on more than one of the doctors.  Only at the end does Veta realize that maybe Harvey isn’t so bad after all.

The play premiered on November 1, 1944 at the 48th Street Theatre on Broadway where it was staged for 1,775 performances before closing on  January 15, 1949.  The playwrite Mary Chase received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work in 1945.

The cast includes:

Myrtle Mae Simmons - Brigid McBride

Veta Louise Simmons - Katie Bentley

Elwood P. Dowd - Rolands Lauzums

Miss Johnson - Sarah Sapiro

Mrs. Ethel Chauvenet - Kelsey Pfeifer

Ruth Kelly, R.N - Kiaran Hartnett

Duane Wilson - Matt Klein

Lyman Sanderson, M.D. - Braden Bjella

William R. Chumley, M.D - Zev Woskoff

Betty Chumley - Meredith Head

Judge Omar Gaffney - Harrison Gabel

E. J. Lofgren - Stefan Schallack

All tickets are general admission and available at the door. 

Adults $7   Students/Seniors   $5