The Little Theatre in Owatonna will feature several Austin actors, along with a little murderous intent and a Boris Karloff look-alike, in the group’s upcoming show “Arsenic and Old Lace.”

“It is one of the funniest and most enduring comedies of the 20th century,” said Jeffrey Jackson, director. “The show was written in 1939 and yet it continues to be performed.”

Brian Mattson, a social worker in Austin, plays Officer O’Hara. Jackson credits Mattson with impeccable acting ability.

“He is an absolute hoot,” Jackson said. “I’m so glad we have him in the cast.”

Howard and Jane Kittleson are also in the show, with Jane playing Aunt Martha and Howard playing multiple roles.

The play — written by Joseph Kesselring and directed by Jeffrey Jackson, with technical direction by Sandee Hardy-Hagen — tells the story of Mortimer Brewster and his out-of-kilter family.

Brewster is living a wonderful life in New York in the early 1940s. He writes theater reviews for a New York City newspaper, though he’d much rather being writing about real estate or about Henry David Thoreau. He has a loving, supportive, albeit slightly daft, family in his sweet spinster aunts, Abby and Martha, and his older brother Teddy, who thinks he’s Theodore Roosevelt. Mortimer’s in love with the woman of his dreams, Elaine Harper, the daughter of the Episcopal minister who lives right next door to the Brewsters’ Brooklyn home.

Things for Mortimer suddenly turn upside down when he discovers, much to his shock and chagrin, a dark secret stashed away in the window seat of his aunts’ living room and kept hidden in the cellar of the home — a secret involving his aunts, arsenic and elderberry wine.

Complicating matters is the arrival of Mortimer’s terrifying oldest brother, Jonathan, and his partner in crime — literally — Dr. Einstein. As Mortimer tries to protect his aunts and get rid of Jonathan, who looks a lot like horror star Boris Karloff, he combats his greatest fear — that he may be just as crazy as the rest of his family.

Performances of “Arsenic and Old Lace” will be at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 21, 22, 27, 28 and 29, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Oct. 23, at the Little Theatre of Owatonna, 560A Dunnell Drive in the West Hills Complex. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Monday, Oct. 17, at the LTO box office. The box office will be open from 4 to 6:30 p.m. weekdays on non-performance nights, from 4 to 7:30 p.m. on weekday performance nights, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. on weekend performance nights and from 12:30 to 2 p.m. on weekend matinees. Call the box office at 507-451-0764 during box office hours.