You Can't Take It With You

Written by Moss Hart and George Kaufman, directed by Ann Pittman, Trinity Street Players presents You Can't Take It With You April 15-18, 22-25. Thursday-Saturdays at 7:30, Sundays at 2:30. 901 Trinity St. Call 476-2625 to reserve your tickets or email trinitystreetplayers@fbcaustin.org. Childcare available the 18th and 24th.

You Can’t Take It With You is a delightful play detailing the life of a not-so-normal American family in the 1930s, and the reaction of “everyman” to this unique family’s philosophy of living. A beautiful play written after the first world war and during the depression, in a time when America needed encouragement to think outside the box and laugh a little at life, You Can’t Take It With You asks its audience to consider lots of things we may take for granted. For example, why do we work jobs that give us indigestion? Why do we spend money on battleships? What if we chose a hobby (even one we aren’t particularly good at) and worked at it for eight years? Why don’t we visit zoos more often? What if we did what we loved, and loved who we wanted? What if we danced around our living rooms in a tutu and weren’t ashamed?

I had a pastor once who closed every worship service with “Love God, embrace beauty and live life to the fullest.” What if we lived unabashedly as the unique (and a little bit crazy) individuals God created us to be? What if we loved our families unconditionally and accepted our neighbors for who they really are?

“It’s amazing what some people go through and still keep kind of gay too,” Grandpa says. Yes, Grandpa, yes it is. Whether it’s a world war or a financial crisis or an arms race or a corrupt government or just frustration at spilling coffee all over your dress shirt on your way to work, life is hard. So we might as well just relax, live fully, and love one another deeply because, after all, “you can’t take it with you.”

Starring Linda Miller Raff, Doug Keenan, Kate Spencer, Jeremy Christopher, Joe Grady Moore III, Arleigh De Leon, Ginger Young, Jordan Dollar, Mary Bell, Jonathan Slocum, Mikey De Leon, Tommy Chiodo, Hector De Leon, Stephanie Morris, Gay Wucher, Paul Webster Feinstein, Charles and Cameron Venable and Roland Johnson as Grandpa!