“When we start the show, we’re timing it,” Director Haley Reeves told the cast of You Can’t Take It with You. “We’re timing how long it’s gonna take.”
She said the Wrangell Theatre Company put in a lot of time and has been rehearsing the romantic comedy for the past two months.
“It’s about this eccentric family and they all have these weird habits and things that they’ve done for years,” Reeves said. “Like, Grandpa doesn’t pay his income tax. The mom of the house writes plays because a typewriter was accidentally mailed to her house eight years ago. They have a daughter who likes to do ballet; a Russian dance teacher in there…”
The story’s plot centers around a dinner the daughter’s high-class fiancé’s family invited them to. The problem? The eccentric family – the Sycamores – arrived on the wrong night and everything kind of exploded from there.
Reeves said her favorite part is the dinner scene itself.
“I’m an easy laugh, I will give the crew that,” she said. “But I laughed so hard yesterday, I was like crying. I couldn’t even get words out.”
“the family that it creates is my favorite part of community theater”
She said the bond that the crew has made with each other is the most memorable thing to her about this play. But that feeling isn’t new, she said she felt that way in the past with her other theater productions.
“More new faces of people I’ve never hung out with outside of this, or would have, I guess,” Reeves said. “And just the family that it creates is my favorite part of community theater, for sure.”
Wrangell’s theater group has performed a few musicals in the last few years – Cinderella, the Sound of Music and Annie. Reeves said that over the summer she was talking with her friend, co-director and cast member, Kristen DeBord, about wanting to do a play that’s not a musical this time around. DeBord suggested You Can’t Take It with You, a play she acted in almost 20 years ago.
“It’s been super fun to work with her and just see this image come to life,” Reeves said. “I know it’s very nostalgic for Kristen, so it’s cool to watch it, watch her see it, and watch her be a part of it again.”
DeBord’s character, Penny Sycamore, focuses on writing multiple plays. She’s been working on some for a while and the background clicking sound of her typing on a typewriter is consistent while chatter fills the stage, at least in the first act. In one play, she was trying to figure out what happens when a woman spends a significant amount of time with a group of monks.
Penny Sycamore: a playwright mother with a typewriter
Besides being a playwright, she’s also the mom of the quirky Sycamore family.
“Penny is very eccentric,” DeBord said. “She writes plays because a typewriter was accidentally delivered to the home. She also is a painter and she has a husband who’s really into fireworks, so she talks to him about that. She just kind of is in her own world, as all of them are. They’re all in their own world.”
Originally she only had the role as co-director and didn’t have a character. In fact, she just started rehearsing the part last week. Reeves said the cast change was due to reorganizing people where they could shine best.
Essie now compared to then
“I did this show like almost 20 years ago and played Essie,” DeBord said. “I think what’s been the most memorable, or the most fun thing for me, is comparing how people are interpreting the characters this round compared to last time I did it. And it’s just equally funny, but very different.”
DeBord said she portrayed Essie as very studious with a strict ballet practice. The current cast member, Sarah Scambler, plays her as a free-spirit.
One example would be when Essie’s husband, Ed, amateurly plays a Beethoven piece on the xylophone, Essie clumsily shows off her ballet moves. They seem to have a content symbiotic relationship though, where they want to express their art while supporting each other.
“I am so ecstatic about the way it’s come together.”
It takes more than cast members and a director though, and that’s where Stage and Props Manager Bonnie Ritchie comes in. She said everyone kind of chipped in with props and setting the scene together, like gathering tomatoes or papers for one of the scenes. She also played a role with selecting the cast.
“What has been the best part is casting the play,” she said. “When the people came in and were auditioning for the parts and when we were putting the pieces together, that probably was the funnest because we saw what we wanted to see for each character in the people. Since they’ve developed the characters, it’s just been so much fun.”
She said the setting is a 1930s house with a bunch of random things to match the eccentric family. That includes plants, snakes, fireworks and that typewriter.
“We were gathering couches and chairs from all over the town and putting things together that didn’t fit right or that didn’t work or that were broken,” Ritchie said. “After it’s all been put together, I am so ecstatic about the way that it’s come together.”
None of the props look like they were once broken though as the Sycamore family utilizes them at their respective spaces: Ed at the xylophone, Essie taking up empty space to practice ballet, Penny at the desk with the typewriter and Grandpa Martin Vanderhof at the round dinner table.
A fake turkey with latex over it
Then there’s cast member Nicholas Cole who also happens to be a prop master connoisseur, at least according to Director Haley Reeves.
“I wouldn’t say that exact word, but I have a lot of interesting knickknacks and this and that,” he said. “Generally, when they ask for something, whether it’s props or set decoration, I can come up with something to bring in or make. Like I made the fake turkey for it.”
That fake turkey is made of a stuffed animal with tights and latex over it.
“The whole play is after my own heart.”
But besides helping out with props, Cole plays Wilbur Henderson, an IRS agent who confronts Grandpa Vanderhof about not paying his taxes.
“It’s fun to act in a way separate from how I normally act,” Cole said. “To go and yell at people, for lack of a better word, and be very confrontational because that’s not who I normally am.”
He said that the whole cast is a bundle of joy.
“The whole play is after my own heart, just like people with a bunch of different random hobbies that do weird stuff,” Cole said. “I enjoy that.”
And the play wouldn’t be complete without quirky sounds, like fireworks, and music in between acts, as managed by musician Dan Powers. Multiple members said the added effects should surprise and wow audience members during the performance.
You Can’t Take it with You will play at The Nolan Center on Friday and Saturday at 7pm. Tickets are $20 and can be bought online or at the door.
