SELINSGROVE - The Courtyard Theater will present "You Can't Take It With You" beginning today in its theater at the Susquehanna Valley Mall.
"You Can't Take It With You" is the uproarious Pulitzer-Prize winning story of a crazy New York family whose daughter and her boyfriend bring his rich, strait-laced parents to dinner on the wrong night. The fireworks are in the basement, and, all in all, there's a heck of an explosion.
"In the middle of the night it goes BOOM!" laughs Bob Taylor, the Courtyard Theater's artistic director.
The extensively renovated theater, now in its second season inside the mall next to the former J. C. Penney store, has brought on stage a cast of 12 actors and seven actresses - only one fewer than the cast that ran through Feb. 22 on Broadway.
"I was really happy when we cast this show," Taylor says. "It's great to be able to get 19 talented people for a comedy like this."
Among the players in this absolute carnival of revolving doors will be Leon Broskey of Elysburg and Dylan Taylor of Coal Township.
Taylor, whose life on the stage has covered more than 40 years, plays Grandpa Vanderhof, the show's eccentric paterfamilias, a role originally created by Lionel Barrymore and played on Broadway over the past winter by James Earl Jones.
The play will run over two weekends, this weekend, and the following weekend - May 15, 16 and 17 - with evening shows at 7 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15 ($16 for credit card sales) and can be bought by phone afternoons and evenings by calling 570-374-0060 or online at www.thecourtyardtheater.net.
Renovations to the theater have brought the stage four feet closer to the audience, creating more room for the realistic and imaginative sets Taylor wants.
This season the theater has devised a special new eight-part savings ticket that theatergoers can use in a variety of ways. "Use the ticket for eight shows or, for example, bring two or three friends to 'You Can't Take It With You.' We punch the ticket four times and the buyer still has admission to our other shows or can use it to bring guests until the eight punch-holes are filled," says Taylor. The season ticket costs $99, a savings of 20 per cent. Or theatergoers can buy a half-year ticket for $50.
Taylor also has created a sponsorship program to help offset the cost of the theatrical licenses necessary to stage big shows like 'You Can't Take It With You.' Sponsors get prominent advertising on the inside cover of the colorful program for the play they sponsor, plus a full-page ad in the programs for every show throughout the year. "We charged $200 last season for a full-page ad," Taylor points out, "so sponsors are saving a lot of money."