After staging several musicals since the Nolan Center resurrected Wrangell’s community theater in 2022, this fall’s production is a romantic comedy about a man from a rich family who gets engaged to a woman from a very different family.
“It’s high-energy hilarious,” co-director Kristen DeBord said of “You Can’t Take It With You.”
Rehearsals are underway three days a week, with the cast and other volunteers working toward performances at the Nolan Center on Nov. 1 and 2, and maybe Nov. 3 if advance ticket sales are strong enough, said co-director Haley Reeves.
“The big motivation for doing a non-musical is to draw in new faces” for the cast, people who might have stayed away from singing parts, DeBord said.
Reeves said she and DeBord talked this summer about the next selection for the community theater, steering away from a traditional musical production, which she said can be more overwhelming to pull together than other plays.
“We had lots of new faces come down” for auditions Sept. 3-4, Reeves said.
This is the second time for DeBord in “You Can’t Take It With You.” She performed in the play at college 20 years ago, while a student at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.
And she is not the only one from the school involved in the Wrangell production.
Cody Anderson, who also went to Appalachian State, will play Tony Kirby, a vice president in the family company that is trying to buy up property for a factory, but his dad is not the most reputable businessman around.
The son falls in love with a stenographer at the family business and proposes marriage, setting off the comedy between two very different families.
The play, which won the 1936 Pulitzer Prize, was made into a movie directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore and Jean Arthur, winning two Oscars in 1938.
The play’s target audience is 14 and older, Reeves said. The theater plans to return to a children-friendly musical for its spring production.
“We want to make it a fun night out,” she said of the older audience for the November production.
In addition to Anderson, the Wrangell cast includes Erin Everett, Matt Nore, Sarah Scambler, Tyler Baldi, Eva Roher, Dan Powers, Harrison Steckman, Nicole Hammer, Chase Green, Ellen Jellum, Matt Henson, Tyla Nelson, Nick Cole and Angelina Respecia.
Reeves said Bonnie Ritchie is stage manager; Nelson and Damon Roher are in charge of the sets; Powers is handling the sound; and Joan Sargeant and Artha DeRuyter volunteered to handle the costumes.
The play has all its cast and other volunteer roles filled, Reeves said, but the organizers will be asking the community for financial sponsors as the production gets closer.
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