MainStage Production
You Can't Take it With You
March 9 - 27
Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm
Sundays at 2pm
To celebrate our 80th season, we opened the annals of our theater and chose a show we did in our very first season.
You Can't Take it with You, is a classic American Comedy from the 1930’s .Grandpa Vanderhof and his wacky family, the Sycamores, have been happily living their zany lives in his house by Columbia University in New York for many years. This family (and their friends) are a madcap group of eccentrics, marching to the beat of their own drum, with pride and joy. Their hobbies include collecting snakes, building fireworks in the basement, writing a myriad of plays that never get published, and taking ballet lessons. Things like stress, jobs, and paying taxes to the government are for other people, not for them! But when practical young Alice Sycamore becomes engaged to her company’s Vice President Tony Kirby, the Vanderhof/Sycamore clan must straighten up to meet the new in-laws.
Disaster ensues when the Kirbys arrive at the wrong time and, despite the best laid plans, see Alice’s family in all of its crazy glory. The evening ends with everyone in the house getting arrested, and Alice ending the engagement. It isn’t until Grandpa’s wise speech to Mr. Kirby about the importance of living life to the fullest that the two families find a way to accept each other, and love conquers all.
You Can’t Take it with You is a madcap, idealistic comedy that reinforces the idea that you can only live life to the fullest by doing whatever makes you happy.
Cast
(in order of appearance)
Penny
Essie
Rheba
Paul
Mr. De Pinna
Ed
Donald
Grandpa Vanderhoff
Alice Sycamore
IRS Henderson
Tony Kirby
Kolenkhov
Gay
Mr. Kirby
Mrs. Kirby
The man
G-man
G-man
Olga
Henderson (cover)
Melodie Rivers
Cassidy LeClair
Kyrsten Williams
Perry Shields
Dani Bustamante
Bradley James Holzer
Sammie Wayne
Carl Weintraub
Abigail Stewart
Daniel Koh
Erin Galloway
Michael Mullen
Monte Escalante
John Combs
Cindy Shields
Herb Hall
Mike Currie
Harrison Hume Smith
Patti Lewis
Herb Hall
Director: Cate Caplin
Producer: Crystal Jackson
Written by
Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Cate Caplin (Director) has produced, directed and choreographed over 200 productions and her work has been seen on television, in films, music videos, commercials and in theatrical venues world wide from the Paris Opera House to the Broadway Stage. She is a published writer, a theatre and dance educator and a 34 times Regional and International Theatrical Ballroom Champion. Cate wrote and directed her first feature film, Mating Dance which won an Accolade Award, Best Indie Feature at NYC’S 2021 Oniros Film Festival and Awards of Merit from IndieFest 2022 for Feature Film, Script/Writer, and Direction. Cate has been the recipient of a Garland Award, a Women In Theatre Red Carpet Award, multiple LA Stage Alliance Ovation, Eddon and Scenie Awards and was honored to receive an Award of Excellence from the LA Film Commission for her work as a Writer, Director, Choreographer and Producer. Cate is an alum of the Actors Studio Directing Unit, an Associate Member of SDC, she is a grateful recipient of Playwright Arena’s “Lee Melville Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Los Angeles Theatre Community” and LA Stage Scene’s “Director of the Year” Award. She most recently Executive Produced and Directed the feature film, The Unicorn Diaries which had it’s World Premiere at Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood for Dances with Films Festival and it will be released in the spring of '26.
