Press Release

The Summer Repertory Heats Up As Great Lakes Theater Festival Opens 2005 Season

July 1, 2005
GLTF’s resident company performs both The Merry Wives of Windsor and You Can’t Take It With You on the same stage for six weeks in rotating repertory to open Festival’s 44th season..

CLEVELAND, OH – Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF) opens its 2005 season with a Summer Repertory that features William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (Wives) and Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s You Can’t Take It With You (Take). The productions will be performed in rotating repertory at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center, July 29-September 3, 2005. The Summer Repertory event features a single company of thirty-four actors performing two alternating plays on the same stage over six weeks. Sari Ketter will direct The Merry Wives of Windsor and Drew Barr will direct You Can’t Take It With You.

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Summer Repertory is sponsored by National City Bank. Media sponsors for the Festival’s 2005 season are Cleveland.com, The Cleveland Free Times, WCLV 104.9 and WCPN 90.3 ideastream. Great Lakes Theater Festival’s 2005 season is dedicated to the memory of James O. Roberts (GLTF Trustee 1984-2005).

“This season’s Summer Repertory is a colossal undertaking,” said GLTF’s Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee. “Merry Wives and You Can’t Take It With You are very big plays. The thirty-four member Summer Repertory acting company makes this one of the largest non-musical endeavors in our company’s history. And we are certainly up for the challenge. Over the past several seasons, we’ve built an extraordinary resident company of artists, begun to define our approach to the classics - a wild, accessible, full-blooded approach - and reached out to our community and audience in consistent and meaningful ways. This is the kind of work that is important to us as a company – theater that we are thrilled to share with our audience in Cleveland. If you’ve been wondering what all the noise is about at Playhouse Square, this is the season to come downtown and check us out.”

Fee also reinforced the Festival’s commitment to producing in repertory. “Performing two plays in rotating repertory is an extraordinary event. The opportunity to see a single acting company perform two plays on the same stage makes the Great Lakes Theater Festival experience unique in Northern Ohio.”

The Festival’s 2005 season opens with The Merry Wives of Windsor. In Wives, audiences meet the rotund rascal Sir John Falstaff and the wise wives of Windsor in one of Shakespeare’s most raucous comedies. With an ego as big as his voracious appetite, Falstaff conspires to woo the two wealthiest married ladies in town and pocket their riches. However, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page devise a scheme of their own to teach him a well-deserved lesson in Wooing 101. Making her artistic debut with the Festival, Sari Ketter will direct the production.

“If Shakespeare ever wrote a situation comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor would be it,” remarked Ketter during a recent interview regarding the upcoming production. “The giddiness which infuses the play is reminiscent of the 1950’s many of us hold in our minds. When we sat down to design the show, we sensed that it needed a setting to bring the meaning of the play into sharp focus; a bold setting capable of containing the equally bold Falstaff. A Howard Johnson’s Motor Resort in Windsor, Connecticut, named after Windsor, England (the play’s setting) provided a beautiful parallel. In many ways this production has the makings of an I Love Lucy episode meets The Dick Van Dyke Show with a dash of The Honeymooners - featuring strong women at the core of a household, struggling to set things right again with their world in the face of daunting odds.”

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s comedy You Can’t Take It With You rounds out GLTF’s Summer Repertory. One of America’s most endearing comedies, this family-friendly, Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a hilariously unconventional family and their unusually eclectic friends is Kaufman and Hart’s masterpiece. In You Can’t Take It With You, the crazy, lovable Sycamore family plays impromptu hosts when their soon to be in-laws arrive unexpectedly for dinner. Sparks fly, literally, as the non-conformist Sycamores face-off with the ultra-traditional Kirbys. Drew Barr will return for his fourth season with the Festival to direct the production.

“This is one of the great classic comedies of the American theater from a period in the United States when theater was at its absolute apex – its golden age,” commented Barr in a recent telephone interview about the production. “Kaufman and Hart, at the top of their game, have crafted a wonderful play full of unforgettable characters. It’s a pure pleasure to spend time with them. In You Can’t Take It With You, there is a real and palpable sense of how families and individuals try to be there for each other despite faults and eccentricities…and it is striking to be reminded how essential that variety and understanding is to the American way of life. I really feel that this is ultimately a play about community. That’s why I believe that it is a great play for Great Lakes Theater Festival to be producing - a theater company that draws so much of its life and identity from the community around it.”

GLTF’s Summer Repertory features a single company of thirty-four actors performing roles in both plays. Twenty-nine members of the acting company are Cleveland-based actors. “Top to bottom, this is an absolutely outstanding classical company of actors. To a person, this cast is experienced, skilled and very, very talented,” said Charles Fee of his repertory ensemble. “We are especially proud to have such a large number of Cleveland actors in our company this season. I think it clearly demonstrates the Festival’s commitment to the local acting community as well as to the economic development of the city of Cleveland.”

“This is an exciting time for Great Lakes Theater Festival,” continued Fee regarding Cleveland’s classic theater. “Of all the changes that we have made over the past several seasons, what is most exciting to me is to have been able to renew our commitment as an organization to the idea of company. On an artistic level, on an administrative level and in our work throughout this vibrant community, the idea of company has and will continue to yield great results for the Festival. I look forward to kicking off another season of great theater with this pair of classic comedies and I can’t wait to share them with Cleveland.”

Opening Night performances of The Merry Wives of Windsor and You Can’t Take It With You have been scheduled for Saturday evenings with preview performances of both productions scheduled for Friday nights. Curtain times for all evening performances will remain at 7:30 p.m., with a 1:30 p.m. curtain time for Saturday matinees and a 3:00 p.m. curtain time for Sunday matinees. Both productions in GLTF’s Summer Repertory will continue to offer sign interpreted and audio described performances as well as the popular Director’s Night and Playnotes pre-show discussion series. (Consult the enclosed season performance calendars for complete details.)

Single tickets for Great Lakes Theater Festival productions range in price from $21.50-$55.00 (Student tickets $12.50 – any performance / any seat) and are available by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online, by visiting the Playhouse Square Center Box office or any Tickets.com outlet located within all Tops Friendly Markets. Groups of ten or more receive discounts as do educators and students. (Consult the enclosed information sheet for complete ticketing and contact details.)

Since 1962, Great Lakes Theater Festival has brought the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in Northern Ohio. The first resident company of Playhouse Square Center, Great Lakes Theater Festival has called the Ohio Theatre home since 1982.

About the Directors

Sari Ketter
Directory, The Merry Wives of Windsor

Sari is making her debut at Great Lakes Theater Festival with The Merry Wives, which was produced last summer at Idaho Shakespeare Festival. She has directed for Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Portland Stage, the Guthrie Theater, Great American History Theater, Pillsbury House Theatre, Mixed Blood Theater, Project Success, Minneapolis Theater Garage and the Ordway Music Theater. She stage directed with the Minnesota Orchestra and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Sari has worked on Broadway as an assistant director for Steppenwolf Theater and Lincoln Center; Off-Broadway for the Acting Company, Playwright’s Horizons, Equity Library Theater and Manhattan Punch Line. Sari has stage Cabaret Pops concerts with the Minnesota Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Houston Symphony and Moore By Four. She has directed over thirty musical and operetta productions, many at the Highfield Theater Light Opera Company on Cape Cod. Sari worked for over ten years on the artistic staff at the Guthrie Theater as assistant and associate to the Artistic Director on many productions. She has worked as assistant director on productions at Arena Stage, Hartford Stage, Seattle Repertory, Manhattan School of Music and Denver Center Theater.

Drew Barr
Director, You Can’t Take It With You

Drew is pleased to return to Great Lakes Theater Festival where he has previously directed The Taming of the Shrew, Tartuffe and Much Ado About Nothing. He arrives in Cleveland having just finished staging The Taming of the Shrew at Idaho Shakespeare Festival and Noel Coward’s Hay Fever for the Graduate Acting Progam at NYU, where he has also directed G.B. Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession. In 2004, Drew directed The Subject Was Roses for PlayMakers Repertory Company, where as an artistic associate his productions include Donald Margulies’ Dinner With Friends, Warren Leight’s Side Man, Margaret Edson’s Wit and the upcoming Copenhagen by Michael Frayn. He also directed Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me A Tenor for Portland Stage Company. Also for Portland Stage, Drew has directed Wit and Moliere’s The Misanthrope. Other regional credits include The Fantasticks, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and Much Ado About Nothing for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. For the University of Washington’s School of Drama, Drew directed William Wycherley’s The Country Wife. New York credits include the Off-Broadway premieres of Adam Bock’s The Typographer’s Dream (Clubbed Thumb at HERE) and Steve Murray’s This Passion Thing (The Working Group at MCC), revivals of Harry Kondoleon’s Christmas On Mars and Self-Torture and Strenuous Exercise (Producers Club Theater). He has directed for Lincoln Center Directors Lab, New York Stage and Film, Playwrights Horizons, the HB Playwright’s Foundation, P-73 Productions, the West Bank Café Theater and the Young Playwrights Festival. Drew received his BA from Stanford University and his MFA from the Graduate Acting Program of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

At A Glance

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

Reviews: The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Plain Dealer
Monday, August 1, 2005
Actor husbands zaniness of Shakespeare comedy
Tony Brown, Plain Dealer Theater Critic

It’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” But it’s a very merry husband of Windsor that cinches the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of Shakespeare’s most brazenly comic comedy. “Merry Wives” is, by legend and tradition, a play written about lovestruck Sir John Falstaff (Paul Kiernan) and the married women he falls for, Mistresses Ford and Page (Kathryn Cherasaro and Lynn Allison, respectively), who get the upper hand. But in director Sari Ketter’s estimation – and in actor Andrew May’s – the play belongs to Master Ford, the jealous husband who is a hysterical, upside-down version of tragic Othello.

Critics often call “Merry Wives” Shakespeare’s shallowest play – there’s even a character named Shallow. That means the audience never believes anything really bad will happen to anybody, just as in a cartoon. Sure, Falstaff might get dumped in the mud, but we know he will bounce back as sure as Wile E. Coyote always does. Directors, actors and adapters often take the play’s insubstantial (though popular) reputation as license to apply even more wackiness by altering the setting, even though it’s the only play by the Bard that concerns the everyday English life of his time.

Less than four years ago, Great Lakes staged a completely new bluegrass adaptation, “Lone Star Love, or the Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas,” that eventually played off-Broadway in New York. Over the weekend, Great Lakes used the actual Shakespeare script (trimmed and with interpolations of mid-20th-century culture – rock ‘n’ roll, the “Dragnet” theme) to open its predominantly comic 2005 season. Ketter’s production, set outside a Howard Johnson’s in 1950s Windsor, Conn., has been making the rounds since 2002 – in Kansas City, Mo.; Santa Cruz, Calif.; Boise, Idaho; and now Cleveland. It’s a maniacally choreographed Saturday morning cartoon that really swings when it’s swinging. But things don’t always add up when Ketter & Co. skimp on the details. Two guys burn their hands trying to pick up a supposedly hot backyard grill, but then pick it up anyway. More important, some of the actors fail to fully take hold of the zaniness, so the comedy sometimes falls flat. This is especially true in the early going, before we get to the Fords’ marital hi-jinks.

Fortunately, others involved know exactly how to go all the way. Nina Domingue sashays with trailer-trash allure as Mistress Quickly. Nick Koesters’ Fenton scores big with his main squeeze with a well-greased Elvis saunter. And Tom Weaver, a regular beanpole, gets in a few nice licks as factotum Peter Simple. But the Bullwinkle of this outfit, the Quick Draw McGraw, is May’s truly twisted Frank Ford – and his twisted-faced, in-disguise alter ego, Brook. Actually, he’s more of a Mr. Peabody in his quieter moments and a George of the Jungle in his hapless rage. But he’s completely over the top, and he’s completely delicious.

Heavens to Murgatroid. Exit stage left even.

Cleveland Scene
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Sheer Will: The laughter rolls in a raucous and randy Merry Wives of Windsor.
Christine Howey

There are plenty of folks who wouldn’t want to touch the often complicated language of Shakespeare with a 10-meter pole. But now and then, a production of one of his works displays so much spirited action and so many irrepressible sight gags that the words cease to be an obstacle. The Ohio Shakespeare Festival staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was one recent example, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, now playing at the Great Lakes Theater Festival, is another. Indeed, there are so many pratfalls, slap-and-tickles, and chases up the aisles that one might mistake this classic comedy for an out-of-control sitcom.

Aiding that perception is director Sari Ketter’s concept of setting all the action at the Garter Resort, which looks like a 1950s-era Howard Johnson’s restaurant. The image is on target, right down to the orange-and-turquoise color scheme and period pop music (“Fever,” “Come Go With Me”).

As for plot, Wives is pretty straightforward: Corpulent and bawdy Sir John Falstaff is hot for two spouses of Windsor gentlemen, Mistresses Ford and Page. Meanwhile, the Pages are trying to marry off their beauteous daughter, Anne, to a dolt, Abraham Slender, even as she is lusted after by Germanic Doctor Caius and her true love, Master Fenton (played with an Elvis pout by Nick Koesters). They are all assisted by Mistress Quickly, Dr. Caius’ housekeeper, who double-dips as a freelance marriage broker. These and other threads get tangled up with sexual intrigues and mistaken identities, until everything ends in happy exhaustion.

The cast of 30 is uniformly sensational, each performer catching director Ketter’s frolicsome approach and making it his own. Paul Kiernan is a riot as Falstaff, decked out in a flowered shorts set, mincing about like an animated pachyderm from a Disney flick. Master Ford is played with knee-buckling, barely restrained passion by Andrew May, enraged at the thought of being cuckolded and dashing around to catch the perp in action. Kathryn Cherasaro and Lynn Allison are deliciously devious as the prankish wives Ford and Page, respectively. And Jeff Cribbs turns Slender into an impenetrably dense doofus, a man whose malaprops are exceeded only by his physical ungainliness.

In smaller but telling roles, David Hansen and Wayne Turney score comedically as Falstaff’s sidemen, Hansen in punk-rocker mode with bleached hair and Turney as geezer-jazz guy. Nina Domingue, sporting a red wig and a Long Island accent, is a gum-chewing stitch as romantic entrepreneur Quickly. The language is further butchered by Marc Moritz, who, as Dr. Caius, mangles words with Inspector Clouseau-like verve.

Purists may find this lively interpretation off-putting, as its layered and often gratuitous gags do stretch the play to the breaking point. Even the brisk set changes are funny. But from Russell Metheny’s eye-candy set to B. Modern’s cacophonous costumes, this Wives is as fresh and buzzy as a Key lime martini on a hot summer day.

Cool Cleveland
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Merry Wives of Windsor @ Ohio Theatre
Kelly Ferjutz

Stage directors of theatre and opera are the ‘explorers’ of today. Geographically speaking, there’s very little new ground to find, therefore these adventurous souls delight in finding new ground on which to set productions that were originally well-settled elsewhere. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But when it does – hold on to your hats!

The plays of Will Shakespeare seem to be the primary target of this sort of exploration, and one indication of how well it works is when you hear his original words and speech patterns coming out of the mouths of today’s actors in a setting of perhaps 50 years ago. When this whole apparatus makes sense, it can only be a hit. ‘A palpable hit’ in fact, to borrow a few words from old Will.

Great Lakes Theater Festival began its summer rep season at the Ohio Theatre in Playhouse Square Center on Saturday night with the latest in a string of marvelously imaginative, fast-paced renditions of Shakespeare plays. The director of record for Merry Wives of Windsor is Sari Ketter, but the influence of Charles Fee (Producing Artistic Director) is evident, as well, in the general wackiness of the action and the wonderful 50s music that is everywhere throughout.

You may not catch everything as it goes flying past you, but you won’t be bored, either. Not for one second. The set, designed by Russell Metheny, immediately takes you back to that cheerful Eisenhower era when there was always a Howard Johnson Motel just ahead. Most of the real motels didn’t look as spiffy and bright as this one in Windsor, Connecticut, however, or they’d still be around. Costumes by B. Modern are wonderfully evocative of that era, and so cheerfully ebullient you may wish you’d brought your sunglasses in with you. A special commendation is due Sound designer Tom Mardikes. For once, the sound didn’t blast you out of your seat! Lighting by Rick Martin added atmosphere in addition to illumination.

But it is the players, after all, who really light up the theater. This batch is incandescent!

Paul Kiernan as Sir John Falstaff, the rotund centerpiece, is amazing as he prances around on and off the stage, doing pratfalls galore, running up the aisles with all his heft and never seeming to get out of breath in the process. The cabana suit (loud and flowery) that he wears in the first act is vaguely reminiscent of maternity outfits of the 50s. However, one usually didn’t see them on men, even if they did possess a basketball sort of belly.

He’s a great straight man to the Master Ford (or the occasional Master Brook) of Andrew May. The first time he blithely steps into the small pool is hilarious. Incredibly enough, it’s just as funny the fifth or sixth time! His visits to Falstaff in the guise of Master Brook, trying to assist the knight in attempting to seduce Ford’s wife in a test of her loyalty, are full of nervous mannerisms, with sometimes uproarious results.

Having been banished to Windsor, ever amorous but having a pinched purse, Falstaff decides to seduce two local, wealthy ladies: Lynn Allison, the lovely Mistress Ford, and the more lively Mistress Page of Kathryn Cherasaro, who, among other mad-cap actions, swings a mean hula hoop. Since both ladies love only their own husbands, they eagerly set about the downfall of Sir John. And what a hilarious downfall it is.

The ladies, of course, have their own conniving assistant, the delicious Nina Domingue, who apparently moved east to Windsor from Brooklyn NY. She carries messages back and forth, being always careful to collect her tips from both sender and receiver. George Roth as Master Page does well at staying out of the way of all the madness that surrounds him.

It is the Page’s daughter Anne (Elizabeth A. Davis), who provides the sub-plot, in the attempted matches proposed by her parents. Father supports the cause of Slender (the well cast Jeff Cribbs) while Mother favors Dr. Caius (Marc Moritz with a hilariously wonderful faux French accent that sometimes gets away from him). Neither of them reckons with the young lady’s choice, Master Fenton, and as played by Nick Koesters in Elvis mode, it’s easy to understand her choice.

Scott Plate as the roguish Host of the Garter Inn; and Dudley Swetland as Justice Shallow stand out, as does Wayne S. Turney as Bardolph in a zoot suit. Patio furniture was quickly and sometimes dancingly moved around by a crew of resort personnel garbed in appropriate HoJo colors.

Falstaff gets dumped in the river with the soiled laundry, then, hastily costumed as an elderly lady is soundly thumped by the irate Master Ford, before being chased around during the midnight rendezvous in the forest. Amid the fairies and goblins the Fords and the Pages are reunited with each other, and Anne gets her Master Fenton. Sir John is left to plan his next adventure.

This Garter Resort is so inviting, I wouldn’t mind a return visit. See for yourself at the Ohio Theatre until August 13, when another zany comedy – You Can’t Take it With You – takes the stage to alternate in repertory until September 3.

Reviews: You Can’t Take It With You

Cleveland Jewish News
GLTF production of classic comedy is a class act
Fran Heller

Never has mayhem been so magnificent.

“You Can’t Take It with You,” Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s rollicking, Pulitzer Prize-winning 1936 comedy about an unconventional, but loving and closely connected family, is one of America’s most endearing and enduring plays. Impeccable direction and a sterling ensemble make for an unforgettable production at Great Lakes Theater Festival and one that you won’t want to miss.

It also proves how well the farce has withstood the test of time.

Making a comedy written for Depression-era audiences so appealing today is Kaufman’s matchless wit and timeless wisdom, beginning with the play’s title, which has since become part of the American idiom. As Grandpa instructs the uptight banker Mr. Kirby, “You have all the money you need. You can’t take it with you.”

The Vanderhof living room is not your ordinary living room. Nor is the Vanderhof family any ordinary family. The patriarch of the household is Martin Vanderhof, or Grandpa, who quit work 35 years ago, collects snakes and attends commencement exercises each year at nearby Columbia University.

Martin’s daughter Penelope has been writing plays for eight years, ever since a typewriter was delivered to the house by mistake, while her husband Paul manufactures fireworks in the cellar. Their daughter Essie, an aspiring ballerina, pirouettes around the living room to the accompaniment of her husband Ed, who plays the xylophone and runs a printing press as a hobby.

Their other daughter, Alice, is the only one with a “real” job on Wall Street. When Alice falls for the boss’s son, the fireworks begin, literally and figuratively.

There is much to praise in Drew Barr’s buoyant production, beginning with his faithful adherence to the original text, where usage of the word “gay,” uttered no less than three times, meant having fun.

Plaudits begin with Gage Williams’ inviting rendition of the large, comfortable Vanderhof living room with its gently worn furniture, picture-filled walls, stained-glass windows, snake aquarium, printing press, dart board, a skull for a candy dish… and that’s just for starters. Rick Martin’s lighting casts a warm glow on the overstuffed household, and Charlotte Yetman’s costumes are priceless.

Wayne S. Turney owns the part of the avuncular, live-and-let-live grandfather and family patriarch Martin Vanderhof. When Essie’s ballet teacher tells Grandpa that his granddaughter’s dancing “stinks,” he replies, “As long as she is having fun,” which just about sums up the memorable character.

Lynn Allison delights as agreeable Penelope Sycamore, the erstwhile painter who accidentally becomes a playwright. George Roth is immensely likeable as the overgrown schoolboy-of-a-father Paul Sycamore.

An effervescent Kathryn Cherasaro is divine as Essie, an Orphan Annie look-alike. Her imitation of a dying swan is priceless.

Marc Moritz is perfect as the amiable schlemiel of a husband Ed, who prints Trotskyite slogans (for the love of it) and puts them in his wife’s homemade candy, which he then sells to the neighborhood.

The menagerie of characters infiltrating the Vanderhof household includes Essie’s dance instructor, the fiery Russian expatriate Boris Kolenkhov. Andrew May’s histrionics as the very loud, very temperamental Russian are hilarious. Paul Kiernan is equally funny as the lisping Mr. De Pinna, an iceman who came and never left.

Nina Domingue charms as the black cook Rheba. The handsome E. B. Smith is her live-in unemployed boyfriend Donald.

Elizabeth A. Davis is thoroughly enjoyable as Alice, the only one in the household with a semblance of normalcy, while Jeff Cribbs is suitably dreamy-eyed as the lovestruck Tony Kirby. A pompous Dudley Swetland and a visibly discomfited Anne McEvoy are Tony’s snooty parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kirby.

A riotous Meg Chamberlain is the inebriated actress Gay Wellington, who passes out stage center while the family unceremoniously covers her with a blanket. There she remains as they go about the business of living.

Sherri Britton’s highly dramatic impersonation of Olga, a former Russian countess-turned-cook is true to character.

Stan Kozak’s cacophony of sound effects includes the inopportune explosion of fireworks, throwing the entire family and their shocked guests into utter bedlam. Director Barr’s orchestration of the ensuing chaos is farce at its funniest.

Playwright Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh to parents of German Jewish descent. His maternal grandfather helped found the Reform Temple Rodef Shalom, where Kaufman was confirmed. The play is said to be Kaufman’s private tribute to his father Joseph Kaufman and his father’s philosophy.

This production is as good as it gets… anywhere. I’m already planning to see it again.

Scene Magazine
Fun With Dysfunction: The jokes are faded, but the laughs remain in You Can’t Take It With You
Christine Howey

More than a decade ago, the inestimable humor rag Spy Magazine ran a continuing feature in which it noted how the plot lines of various contemporary TV sitcoms were identical to those of earlier shows – often aired decades earlier – proving either plagiarism or a surprisingly coincidental comic inspiration. (This was one of the many enduring gifts Spy has bestowed upon our culture, including the “Separated at Birth” photo comparison and the priceless description of Donald Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian.”)

In the same way, one could consider You Can’t Take It With You, the flat-out hilarious 1936 play written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, as the starter kit for countless scripts containing a gaggle of eccentrics who, darn it, just want to be who they are. Set in New York City in the home of the Sycamore family, this halfway house for slightly batty individualists is headed by Grandpa Martin Vanderhof, a live-for-the-moment fellow who exited the hurly-burly of corporate life long ago to spend his days going to the zoo, tending his pet snakes, practicing darts, and just enjoying himself.

Such a simplistic approach to life was undeniably attractive in Depression-era America, when songwriters were trying to convince people struggling with desperate poverty that “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” Trouble is, cherries cost money, and in the context of this play – now being performed in repertory with The Merry Wives of Windsor by the Great Lakes Theater Festival – it helps that Paul Sycamore, in whose slightly faded middle-class house everyone resides, has enough cash to fund such a bohemian lifestyle. Paul (George Roth) is busy following his muse by assembling fireworks in the basement, aided by fellow inventor Mr. De Pinna (portrayed with a juicy lateral lisp by Paul Kiernan), a guy who was delivering ice to local homes until he stepped into the Sycamore residence eight years before and never left.

These are just a few of the zany characters inhabiting this work, which is popular with community theaters and high schools, since it affords 19 people a moment in the spotlight. But it is a pleasure to see how the talented Great Lakes crew, under the direction of Drew Barr, creates a believably unhinged herd of folks that you’re eager to spend three acts observing. The tone is perfectly set at the outset when Penelope Sycamore, Paul’s wife and Gramps’ daughter, is mulling the stalled plot of a play she’s writing about a young woman taking shelter in a convent (“You’d think with 40 monks and one girl, something would happen!”). Having entered the literary world by accident when a typewriter was mistakenly delivered to the house, Penny, played with a sly mixture of dilettante flightiness and iron-willed determination by Lynn Allison, now has a stack of florid, unfinished scripts to match the unfinished oil portraits that testify to her previous passion.

One of the Sycamore daughters, Essie (the endearing Kathryn Cherasaro), is a dedicated but ungainly dancer, who displays her modest talents with every movement while her hubby, Ed (a sweetly befuddled Marc Moritz), practices the xylophone and prints the family’s daily menu on his small printing press. The other daughter, Alice, is almost normal; she’s in love with her boss’ son, Tony Kirby. Rapier-slim Elizabeth A. Davis and earnest Jeff Cribbs manage to craft a credible romance amid all the craziness, but things come a cropper when Tony’s parents show up early for a get-acquainted dinner one night and catch the Sycamores and friends in full derangement.

Dudley Swetland’s pompous Mr. Kirby is the ideal foil for this confrontation; his disdain for the suggested impromptu meal of frankfurters and canned salmon is matched by his wife’s frosty demeanor. But when Penny decides to play a word game, the Kirbys confront chinks in their own relationship and the stage is set for the happily forced denouement.

Capturing the rolling cadences of Lionel Barrymore, who played Pops Vanderhof in the Frank Capra film version, Wayne Turney is warm and charming, but lacks the grit necessary when the populist patriarch rails against the IRS. In a smaller role, Andrew May gnaws on his Russian-accented syllables with gusto as Essie’s dance coach, Boris Kolenkhov, and causes havoc when he face-plants Mr. Kirby in a spontaneous demonstration of wrestling prowess. Additionally, Meg Chamberlain is a boozy blast as drunken actress Gay Wellington, shanghaied from a bus by Penny to read scripts. When Gay woozily encounters the glass box containing Grandpa’s pets, she slurs, “When I start seeing snakes, I know it’s time for me to lie down.”

Although some of the topical jokes of the time are faded beyond recognition, the Great Lakes actors prove their mettle by focusing on the humanity, rather than the peculiarities, of their characters. This makes the situations even funnier and the evening an untrammeled delight.

Akron Beacon Journal
Take in play, take laughs away: Pulitzer-winning 1937 classic features grand cast showing fine comedic timing
Kerry Clawson

The lovably eccentric Sycamores are a family you’ve got to visit in the Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of You Can’t Take It With You.

This quirky 1937 play crackles with wit, thanks to great writing and a grand cast that offers impeccable comedic timing under the direction of Drew Barr. Penned by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play was a hit then and continues to deliver a strong message today.

The story is set in 1936, when most Americans were still suffering from the Great Depression. Critics at the time termed the comedy an escapist farce and criticized it for not having deep content.

That’s selling the show far too short, considering its underlying message is an inspiring one: Do what you truly love and have a passion for, rather than living for the almighty buck.

In this story, Grandpa (the outstanding Wayne Turney) walked away from his job 35 years ago to pursue his interests in snakes, circuses and commencement ceremonies. His daughter, Penelope (Lynn Allison), became a writer by accident, while her husband, Paul (George Roth), is obsessed with creating fireworks in the basement.

Daughter Essie (Kathryn Cherasaro) flits around delightfully badly as a ballerina, and Essie’s husband, Ed (Marc Moritz), plays the xylophone incessantly. Only daughter Alice, played by the Audrey Hepburn-esque Elizabeth Davis, is gainfully employed.

All these leisure activities are set in Grandpa’s New York living room, a pleasantly cluttered space designed by Gage Williams that features a winding wood staircase as well as scads of family photos.

Alice and young Wall Street executive Tony Kirby are engaged, but she fears his proper parents will never get along with her flaky family. When they all meet, a hilarious fiasco ensues.

Mr. Kirby (Dudley Swetland) has indigestion from working too much on Wall Street. He and his wife both have repressed human desires that Grandpa et al help them acknowledge.

Sure, this story is oversimplified. Most people don’t have the luxury of walking away from their jobs, and they especially didn’t during the Depression.

But Grandpa stresses the important things in life perfectly by praying to God (“Sir”) only for health and happiness, ending grace with: “As far as everything else is concerned, we’ll leave that up to you.”

Turney leads the cast as lovingly crusty Grandpa, who hasn’t paid his taxes in decades because he doesn’t believe in it.

Cherasaro is a hilarious oversized doll with her blond Shirley Temple curls as Essie, a marked contrast to Davis’ elegant Alice with her upper-crust accent.

Paul Kiernan is cartoonishly funny as the lisping ice man who made a delivery and never left, and Andrew May is over-the-top as the fervent Russian ballet teacher Boris Kolenkhov.

Also delightful is Meg Chamberlain as a drunken actress whom Penelope picked up on the street to read her play.

It’s impressive that most of these cast members are also performing in repertory in the current production of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor at Great Lakes.

The original stage production of You Can’t Take It With You led to Frank Capra’s 1938 Academy Award-winning film starring Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart, as well as several TV versions.

Cool Cleveland
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
You Can’t Take It With You @ Ohio Theatre
Kelly Ferjutz

Who knew? Although we’ve seen Andrew May on local stages in a wide variety of roles, who could have known that he could be the perfect crazy Russian of the mid-1930s in this rollicking romp? Thanks to Charlie Fee and Drew Barr of Great Lakes Theater Festival, we can all now have the opportunity to watch Andrew pose and posture, swash and buckle, jump on and over furniture and spit out the harsh consonants of the faux-Russian language utilized by Boris Kolenkhov, dancing master to Essie, one of the Sycamore family daughters. But you do have to move rather quickly – this second half of the summer rep at Great Lakes comes to a close on September 3.

If this organized mayhem needed a sub-title, an appropriate one might be “Live and Let Live” which is the philosophy of the patriarch of the Sycamore family, Martin Vanderhof, more familiarly known as “Grandpa.” Wayne S. Turney is a Grandpa who has added years to his life – and expects to add a good many more – simply by doing exactly what he wants, and encouraging those around him to do the same.

For instance, 35 years earlier, he’d simply walked out of his office one day and never returned. He is now a man of leisure, collecting snakes and stamps, throwing darts and observing college graduations, because they’re there. Those around him contribute to the chaos but he remains staunchly oblivious and perfectly serene.

His household consists of a daughter Penny (Lynn Allison) who has been writing plays for the last eight years because a typewriter was delivered to the house by mistake. No one ever claimed it, so Penny switched from painting to being a writer. Never mind that no one ever reads her plays, she’s a happy writer, nonetheless. Her husband Paul (George Roth) occasionally builds a model kit, or designs fireworks in the basement, with the assistance (or maybe connivance) of their boarder Mr. De Pinna, played by Paul Kiernan.

While delivering ice some eight years earlier, Mr. De Pinna was so taken by the household that he quit the delivery job and moved right in. He’s modeled for Penny in her painting stage, and does errands, but his main function is to help with the fireworks business.

Penny and Paul have two daughters. Essie, the older of them, enchantingly danced by Kathryn Cherasaro, dreams of being a ballerina, and has been taking lessons for the past eight years from the above-mentioned Mr. Kolenkhov, who confesses, “she shtinks!” When not dancing, she makes candy, which is sold throughout the neighborhood. Essie’s husband Ed (Mark Moritz) plays the xylophone and runs a printing press. For lack of anything better to print, he prints short Bolshevik slogans, which are inserted into the packets of candy produced by his wife.

The other daughter, Alice, is the oddball in this family – she’s normal! Alice (Elizabeth A. Davis) actually has a job, and has fallen in love with the son and heir of the owner of The Kirby Company for which she works. Tony Kirby (Jeff Cribbs) returns her affections, and does his best to convince her that they can make it work, if they will but try.

Of course, the night when the Kirbys (Dudley Swetland and Anne McEvoy) come for dinner turns out to be the wrong night (on purpose) and manic mayhem ensues when the house is invaded by agents from the Internal Revenue Service, because of the slips of paper as printed by Ed, and the fact that Grandpa hasn’t paid any income taxes for years. Almost everyone goes off to jail for the evening.

Meg Chamberlain as Gay Wellington (an out-of-work actress) and Sherri Britton as the Grand Duchess Olga (cousin of the Czar and now a waitress at Childs’ Restaurant) demonstrate once again that there are no small actors, merely small parts.

Nina Domingue as the maid-of-all-work Rheba keeps the household purring along, with the able assistance of her gentleman friend Donald, played by E. B. Smith. Scott Plate, Dougfred Miller, Nicholas Koesters and David Hanson round out the cast, which is superbly directed by Drew Barr.

The wonderfully realistic set, depicting a large living room with various alcoves and grand stairway at the rear is by Gage Williams, with lighting by Rick Martin. The marvelous period costumes are by Charlotte Yetman. Delightful 30s music is presented by sound designer Stan Kozak, as are the kabooms of the fireworks!

It’s possible that more people are familiar with the award-winning movie than the stage version. You Can’t Take It With You by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman won The Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1937, after which the film rights were purchased for the then-unheard-of sum of $200,000. The film, directed by Frank Capra, won the Academy Award for Best Film of 1938.

You Can’t Take It With You continues in rep with The Merry Wives of Windsor through September 3.

Photos: The Merry Wives of Windsor

Actors Kathryn Cherasaro (Mistress Ford, left) and Lynn Allison (Mistress Page, right) star as the title characters in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Actors Kathryn Cherasaro (Mistress Ford, left) and Lynn Allison (Mistress Page, right) star as the title characters in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
The rotund rascal, Sir John Falstaff (actor Paul Kiernan, center) steals a kiss from Mistress Page (actress Lynn Allison, right) as Master Page (actor George Roth, background) tends to the barbecue in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Mistress Ford (actress Kathryn Cherasaro) and Sir John Falstaff (actor Paul Kiernan) make an unlikely couple in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni		Sir John Falstaff (actor Paul Kiernan) takes center stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center.
Cleveland favorite Andrew May (Master Ford, left) shares the stage with actor Paul Kiernan (Sir John Falstaff, right) in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni		Comic actors Andrew May and Paul Kiernan share the stage as Master Ford and Sir John Falstaff in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Cleveland actors Nina Domingue (Mistress Quickly) and Nicholas Koesters (Fenton) share the stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Cleveland actors Nina Domingue (Mistress Quickly) and Tom Weaver (Simple) share a laugh in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Cleveland favorites Andrew May (Master Ford, left) and Scott Plate (The Host of the Garter Resort) share the stage and laugh it up in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
		Dougfred Miller (Sir Hugh Evans, left), Lynn Allison (Mistress Page, center) and Nina Domingue, right) light up the stage with comic flair in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Cleveland favorite Scott Plate (Host of the Garter Resort, left) watches on as Tom Weaver (Simple, center) shares a laugh with Paul Kierrnan (Sir John Falstaff, right) in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s season opening summer repertory production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Wives runs in rotating repertory with Kaufman and Hart’s Pulitzer prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center.

Photos: You Can’t Take It With You

		Kathryn Cherasaro laughs it up as Essie as actors Andrew May (left), Lynn Allison (top) and Marc Moritz (right) watch on in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s summer repertory production of You Can’t Take It With You. You Can’t Take It With You runs in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s raucous comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Actors Wayne S. Turney (Grandpa, left), Andrew May (Kolenkhov, center) and Nina Domingue (Rheba, center) take center stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s summer repertory production of You Can’t Take It With You. You Can’t Take It With You runs in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s raucous comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Actors Paul Kiernan (Mr. De Pinna, left) and George Roth (Paul Sycamore, right) take center stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s summer repertory production of You Can’t Take It With You. You Can’t Take It With You runs in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s raucous comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Kathryn Cherasaro celebrates as Essie in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s summer repertory production of You Can’t Take It With You. You Can’t Take It With You runs in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s raucous comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
(From left to right) Actors Andrew May (Kolenkhov), Marc Moritz (Ed Carmichael), Kathryn Cherasaro (Essie), Elizabeth A. Davis (Alice) and Wayne S. Turney (Grandpa) in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s summer repertory production of You Can’t Take It With You. You Can’t Take It With You runs in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s raucous comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
(From left to right) Actors Andrew May (Kolenkhov), Kathryn Cherasaro (Essie), Marc Moritz (Ed Carmichael), Elizabeth A. Davis (Alice), Wayne S. Turney (Grandpa) and Dudley Swetland (Mr Kirby) share the stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s summer repertory production of You Can’t Take It With You. You Can’t Take It With You runs in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s raucous comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
(From left to right) Dudley Swetland (Mr Kirby), Anne McEvoy (Mrs. Kirby), Elizabeth A. Davis (Alice) and Jeff Cribbs (Tony) share the stage in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s summer repertory production of You Can’t Take It With You. You Can’t Take It With You runs in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s raucous comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni
Actors Elizabeth A. Davis (Alice) and Jeff Cribbs (Tony) share an embrace in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s summer repertory production of You Can’t Take It With You. You Can’t Take It With You runs in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s raucous comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor through September 3rd at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photograph by Roger Mastroianni