Stamford’s Curtain Call to stage ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’
Conn. serial killer inspired dark comedy
While “Arsenic and Old Lace” may be known to many as a screwball black comedy that was a hit Broadway play in 1941 and a huge movie starring Carey Grant, not everyone may realize that the events are based on Connecticut serial killer Amy Duggan ArcherGilligan.
Married to James Archer, she opened the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids in 1907 and was eventually convicted of murdering five residents of her nursing home, although it’s believed she may have been responsible for more than 40 deaths using arsenic as her weapon, Connecticut Magazine previously reported.
So, with Stamford’s Curtain Call staging a production of the play through Feb. 17, the nefarious woman’s 20th century activities took on even larger context.
“I wanted to do a good oldfashioned comedy, and it’s a good-sized cast and so funny,” said Lou Ursone, executive director of Curtain Call. “It’s certainly going to be noted about its history in our program. I have some links to news stories of how this all went down [that] I am including so everyone knows that not only is it based on reality, but it happened here.”
The play was written by Joseph Kesselring and opened on Broadway in 1941. It tells the tale of the eccentricities and murderous antics of a pair of sisters and the crazy Brewster family they are a part of.
Directed by John Atkin, the Curtain Call production stars Ann Alford and Gail Yudain as the two murderous sisters (based on Archer-Gilligan) and includes: Kevin Arthur, Bruce Crilly, Michael DiChello, Roger Dykeman, Phil Garfinkel, Paul Johnson, Rob Munro, Chris Nardi, Rick Stewart, Kathryn Tracy, Erin Wallace and Ted Yudain.
This is the second time the theater is mounting this production; when it was previously staged in 2004, Ursone knew nothing about its connection to the state.
“It wasn’t even on my radar,” he said. “The access to information wasn’t the same
back then. I just stumbled upon the connection a few years ago.”
Connecticut prosecutor (at the time of the murders) Hugh Alcorn was among the few that didn’t find the play too amusing, as it made his reallife department look foolish. At the time of the events, he was notified about many of
the unexpected deaths, and yet nothing was done, Connecticut Magazine previously reported.
Natalie Belanger, adult programs manager of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, recently produced an episode for the Connecticut history podcast “Grating the Nutmeg,” about
the notorious murders that inspired the play.
She explained that ArcherGilligan got away with murder for a long time.
“At the nursing home, residents paid for room, board and any medical attention for the remainder of their lives,” Belanger said.
They also would agree to make “Sister Amy”— ArcherGilligan’s alter ego, the beneficiary of their estates so she could manage their finances once they died, Belanger said.
In just four years, more than 20 people died of mysterious circumstances, with most tied to digestive tract-related maladies. What’s more, Archer-Gilligan’s first husband died from kidney failure, according to Connecticut History. After each death, she would have the body buried quickly before a thorough examination could be completed, Belanger said.
Belanger noted that her scheme was helped along by Howard King, the Windsor medical examiner at the time, who was on the Archer Home payroll as a house doctor, and he was the one signing off on the deaths.
Archer-Gilligan was known to buy arsenic a great deal, usually in the days before a death, claiming she needed it to kill rats, Belanger said. People eventually took notice and reporters started asking questions, but ArcherGilligan complained to Alcorn, suggesting that her poisoning people was ludicrous and demanded people stop tarnishing her good name, Connecticut Magazine previously reported.
That worked, as it would be five more years until any action was taken against her. According to Connecticut History, 60 residents of Archer-Gilligan’s home died between 1907 and 1916.
Archer-Gilligan’s second husband, who the New York Times reports she was only married to for three months prior to his death, also died during that period.
Finally, on May 8, 1916, she was arrested and formally charged with the murders of five people, according to the Windsor Historical Society. She was convicted a year later and sentenced to be hanged, but a stay of execution from the governor earned her a chance to cop to a lower plea. She pleaded to second-degree murder by reason of insanity and spent the rest of her life in prison until she died in 1962, Belanger said.
“Her story was really well known; this was a very notorious murderer,” Belanger said. “And the home from the murders is still there. It remains a very well-known story in Windsor.”