Nathan Lane (left) stars as Sheridan Whiteside, based on the critic Alexander Woollcott, with "Designing Women"'s Jean Smart as Lorraine Sheldon, the Gertrude Lawrence character.

Originally launched on Broadway on October 16, 1939, The Man Who Came to Dinner is about a famous -- and famously cranky -- critic who causes misery in a provincial household where he is forced to convalesce after breaking his hip. Tony Award winner Lane, Jean Smart, Byron Jennings and Lewis J. Stadlen star.

The Man Who Came to Dinner also marks the premiere of the Roundabout's new showplace, the American Airlines Theatre, a 740 seat Broadway house at 227 West 42nd Street. The American Airlines Theatre was formerly known as the Selwyn, once home to Charlot's Revue of 1926 starring Gertrude Lawrence, Beatrice Lillie and Jack Buchanan; The Royal Family (1928); Noel Coward and Beatrice Lillie in This Year of Grace (1928) and Cole Porter's Wake Up and Dream (1929), before it became a movie theatre in 1934.