This year's fall play, under the direction of Anne Schreiber and assisted by Jennifer Ryg, is the award-winning comedy You Can't Take it With You, which promises to be another audience favorite. The play performs November 10-12 at 7:00 p.m. with a free senior citizen matinee on Wednesday, November 9th at 1:00 p.m. Tickets for the general admission shows are $4 for students and $6 for adults.
You Can't Take It With You is about an eccentric family living in New York City in the 1930s. The patriarch of the family, Grandpa (played by Weston Haugen), worked on Wall Street, but he decided 35 years ago to simply give up his job and do what he wanted to do, which now involves going to college graduations and feeding snakes. His daughter Penelope (played by Jenna Kenworthy) received a typewriter by mistake one day, so she decided to be a novelist; her husband Paul (played by Tavan Radke) builds fireworks in the basement; her daughter Essie (played by Hanna Strom) decided to become a ballerina in her 20s; and Essie's husband Ed (played by Andrew Edge) plays the xylophone and prints Communist sayings, putting them in the candy (“love dreams”) that Essie makes. Paul and Penelope's other daughter Alice (played by Talia Kelley) works a “real job” at an office, and she wants to bring her fiance (played by Liam Dostal) and his parents, the rich, aristocratic Kirbys (played by Caleb Chilson and Ashley Dominguez-Marquez), home to meet the family. However, the Kirbys arrive on the wrong night, and chaos (and hilarity) ensues.
The cast and crew are hard at work putting this show together, and everyone is eagerly looking forward to performance weekend. Director Schreiber relates that “this is a more challenging show in terms of special effects, and it also has students stepping out of their boxes more to play these eccentric, zany characters. However, they’re doing a great job inhabiting new characters!” In thinking about why she likes the play, Ashley Dominguez-Marquz (Mrs. Kirby) says, “It's a representation of how life can be life; it doesn't have to be boring. You can have weird habits or hobbies, but they have to make you happy." She thinks that it will be impactful for the audience because, as she says, “The play will make the audience reflect on their life. It will make them think about hobbies they used to have.” Weston Haugen (Grandpa) sums up why people should see this play, saying, “Snakes, explosions, taxes, and laughs.” Tavan Radke (Paul Sycamore) adds that the show is “ridiculously hilarious and fun" and that “fireworks make everything great!”
Other members of the cast include Lily Dearborn, Corey Lilledahl, Jairo Solano, Logan Tufte, Joaquin Lundi, Raymond Anderson, Percy Furnari, Litany Peterson, Poe Broskoff, Gianna Lamb, and Nancy Fernandez. The crew includes Anna Anderson, Lena Moe, Kaitlyn Krupa, Andrienne Liudahl, Axel Reiser, Anyely Dominguez-Marquez, Bryar Quimby, Frankie Gann, Jade Scovill, Ashley Romero, Abigail Akkerman, Ava Cummings, AJ Kozisek, Kianna Peters, Damian Radke, Jessica Willette, Katya Wheeler, Miley Dostal, and Sarah Jensen.
