By By JOHN EBY / Cassopolis Vigilant
Southwestern Michigan College's fall three-act play, the romantic comedy “You Can't Take It With You” by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, opens Thursday, Oct. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in the theater of the Dale A. Lyons Building on the Dowagiac campus.
Thomas Cooper directs an ensemble of eccentrics.
His cast includes Jill Frey as Penelope Sycamore; Kate Blanchard as Essie; Lauren Westerhoven as the servant Rheba; Dwayne Whitmyer as Paul Sycamore; Michael Vanderbosch as Mr. De Pinna, who is eight years into an ice delivery; Timothy Bolton as Ed; Jon Hawthorne as the other servant Donald; Brett Nichols as patriarch Martin Vanderhof; Kaylee Magro as Alice; T.J. Malovey as Henderson; Dustin Wilfert as Tony Kirby; Chris Scott as burly Russian Boris Kolenkhov, Tiphfennie Lynn Lunk as Gay Wellington; Scot P.J. MacDonald as Mr. Kirby; Kay A. Eller as Mrs. Kirby; Dustin Bates, Zach Wilfert and T.J. Malovey as three men; and Jocelyne Tuszynski as Olga Katrina.
The tax-evading grandfather seems to be the sane one in the bunch, except he was on Wall Street until the day he decided to walk away from the financial jungle.
Frank Capra of “It's a Wonderful Life” fame, directed the 1938 movie version in which James Stewart as Tony Kirby woos Jean Arthur. It won two Oscars, including Best Picture, and received five other nominations.
The two families, the Vanderhof/Sycamores, are a study in contrasts.
The offbeat family trades in happiness while the Kirbys, a stiff, uptight banking family, trades mostly in weapons. To complete a big deal, theirs is the last house in the neighborhood Mr. Kirby needs.