Fall Play: “You Can’t Take It With You”
By Alexandra Shworak
The Footlighters’ fall show this year is “You Can’t Take It With You,” directed by Bryan Smith and featuring a cast of colorful characters. Penelope “Penny” Sycamore (played by Kelsie Hogue) started writing plays when she was delivered a typewriter by mistake; eight years later, she’s still doing just that. Her husband, Paul (Xavier Stone), makes fireworks in the basement with his friend Mr. DePinna (Nick Graver). Her father, Martin Vanderhof (Thom Mellert), has never paid an income tax and hasn’t gone to work in 35 years. Penny’s daughter Essie (Olivia Zerphy) makes candies and takes ballet lessons from Boris Kholenkov (Charlie Collison). Essie’s husband, Ed Carmichael (Connor O’Leary), plays the xylophone and operates a printing press.
The only normal person in the family is Penny’s other daughter, Alice (Kelly Gaudet), who holds a desk job at Kirby & Co. When she invites her boyfriend, Tony Kirby (Jeff Polidor), and his strait-laced parents (Mike Lyon and Clio Doyle) to dinner, she tries hard to hide her family’s eccentricities. But when the Kirbys arrive on the wrong night… Well, you can imagine that for yourselves!
Everyone likes specific things about the play. I like the cast members—they are so fun! Jean-Luc Beaubien describes the show as “one of the funnier fall plays,” and Thom Mellert enjoys “being the grandpa.” Stage manager Emma Behrens says, “I actually understand this play and the authors’ sense of humor. I think that the whole show will turn out wonderfully, though I’m slightly concerned that the kitten [we hope to have in the performance] will, like, run across the stage or something.”
If you want to find out what happens, go see “You Can’t Take It With You” on November 4th, 5th, or 6th!