A Delta actor will be treading the boards in an upcoming production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic You Can’t Take It With You.
Trinity Western’s SAMC Theatre opens its two-week run of the play on March 21, with performances Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m., plus 2 p.m. matinees on both Saturdays.
Written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the play “inspires heart-warming emotions and raucous laughter while pointing to the lifelong sources of happiness in family and relationships,” according a press release.
“Grandpa Vanderhof left his business 35 years ago and never looked back. He’s raised his family to live unabashedly as themselves, filling his home with love and happiness,” reads a synopsis on the show’s website.
“When his grand-daughter, Alice, brings home the son of a Wall Street tycoon, the household’s idiosyncrasies threaten to keep them apart. How can these two families, so unalike in every way, come together?”
With its enduring themes of love and family, You Can’t Take It With You has been revived on Broadway five times and was adapted as a movie, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture and Director in 1938.
Cast member Aagaaz Sandhu, a Delta resident and third-year education major at TWU, says the play is “about following your passions and living a life that gives you personal joy rather than societies’ perspective on joy. This play also shows how family is not only defined by blood but also by love.”
Hope Evans, a Fort Langley resident and fourth-year English major, describes the play as being about family, “both biological and found.”
“Each member of the family has their unique passions and quirks, and everyone is welcomed and encouraged to be their truest self in the Sycamore household.”
The theme of chosen family is what resonates the most with student actor Lex Diersch, a third-year theatre major from Maple Ridge.
“Chosen family is one of the most important things in my life and I don’t know where I’d be without these people and the love that they give.”
Joing Sandhu, Evans and Diersh in the cast are Jack Derrenbacker, Stephen Elcheshen, Arman Hassannia, Leighton Hoffman, Sen Longkumer, Val Mihelic, Berke Mutaf, Cath de la Rambelje, Alex Walker, Sarah Grace Wiedenheft, Tahlia Wine and Madison Willoughby, with special appearances by Cayleigh and Aeron Elcheshen.
Directed by Kerri Norris, You Can’t Take It With You runs until April 1 at Freedom Hall in the RNT building at Trinity Western University (22500 University Dr., Langley).
Tickets are $15.18 for adults, $8.79 for students and those unemployed or underemployed, and $11.98 for seniors and TWU staff, faculty and alumni.
To purchase, visit twu.ca/theatre.
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editor@northdeltareporter.com
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