Tag Archives: Moss Hart

Pulitzer plays Little Rock – YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU at LR Central High

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George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s screwball You Can’t Take It with You is one of the rare comedies to with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  This long-running play from the 1930s almost immediately became popular for stock, community, college and high school theatrical troupes.

In April 1980, Little Rock Central High School presented You Can’t Take It With You in one of many times the play has been performed in Little Rock.

Directed by Cheryl Shull with assistance from student director Kim Magee, the cast of nineteen included Mike Breedlove, Teri Thomas, Elizabeth Cobb, Jimmy Jarratt, Murry Newbern, Scott Thomas, Tammy Sellers, Susan Russell, Kevin Baer, Achim Gullatz, and Arnel Joiner.

Roosevelt Thompson as the eccentric Mr. Dipinna in the 1980 Central High production of YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU

Also of note in the cast was Roosevelt Thompson, after whom the Central High School auditorium is now named.  (It was also sadly the site of his all-too-soon memorial service in 1984.)

 

12 Days of Christmas movies: THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER

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The_Man_Who_Came_to_DinnerWhat if you had a horrible house guest, and they would never leave?  That was the premise which launched Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman to write The Man Who Came to Dinner.  This rip-roaring stage play was made into a 1942 movie starring Monty Woolley, Bette Davis (cast against type as a frump) and Ann Sheridan.  In it Woolley plays a high-maintenance famous personality who is stuck as a guest in a house in small town Ohio due to an injury.

Others in the cast include Jimmy Durante, Billie Burke, Mary Wickes, Richard Travis, Grant Mitchell, and Reginald Gardner.  This is definitely a period piece rife with references to people and events in the 1930s and early 1940s.  But it is a lot of fun.  Woolley gleefully skewers everyone and everything in sight as he plots and plans ploys.

Most Kaufman and Hart plays and movies have underlying social themes or pertinent messages. This one does not.  Its only aim is to have fun.  Brothers Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein, do a good job of condensing the Kaufman & Hart play into a 90 minute movie without losing the bite or the wit.

Why is it a Christmas movie?  It takes place at Christmastime. A Christmas Eve radio broadcast is a plot point that provides a great deal of upheaval for the characters. In addition, a unique Christmas present serves as one half of a deus ex machina that helps wrap up the plotlines nicely.

Orson Welles, Don Knotts, Lee Remick, Joan Collins and Marty Feldman starred in a 1972 remake. A 2000 Broadway revival was filmed and aired on PBS with Nathan Lane, Jean Smart and Harriet Harris.

Opening night on Broadway for LR native Will Trice as a producer of revival of YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU

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YCTIWY bwayThree time Tony winner (and Little Rock native) Will Trice is heading back to Broadway this fall as a producer of an all-star revival of the Pulitzer Prize winning comedy You Can’t Take It with You.  The show opens tonight

The cast will be led by two time Tony winner James Earl Jones.  The production will mark a reunion from the recent revival of The Best Man for Jones with actress Elizabeth Ashley and producers Jeffrey Richards and Trice.

The Little Rock Central alum has won a Tony for each of the past three seasons. This marks the first project for the Trice for the 2014-2015 season.

First performed on Broadway at the height of the Great Depression (in a Pulitzer Prize winning run), it has not been revived on Broadway since 1983.  You Can’t Take It with You, by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, celebrates the American spirit as well as spirited family life.  Others in the cast, which is to be directed by multiple Tony nominee Scott Ellis, are Tony nominee Kristine Nielsen, Tony nominee Reg Rogers, Tony nominee Annaleigh Ashford, Theatre World winner Crystal A. Dickinson and stage veterans Byron Jennings and Julie Halston.

Trice at the 2014 Tony Awards

Trice at the 2014 Tony Awards

Mark Linn-Baker, who has cut his teeth on both stage and TV, is also in the cast. Others in the show include Marc Damon Johnson and Patrick Kerr. Three time Tony winner Jason Robert Brown is composing music for the play.

Performances started at New York’s Longacre Theatre on August 26.

Trice’s Tony Awards came for the 2014 Best Play All the Way, 2013 Best Play Revival Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the 2012 Best Musical Revival Porgy and Bess.  He also received a nomination for 2012 Best Play Revival for The Best Man.  This past year, of the 26 Tony Awards presented, seven went to shows produced by Jeffrey Richards and Will Trice.

LR native and 3 time Tony winner Will Trice headed back to Broadway as a producer of revival of YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU.

Posted on by

YCTIWY bwayThree time Tony winner (and Little Rock native) Will Trice is heading back to Broadway this fall as a producer of an all-star revival of the Pulitzer Prize winning comedy You Can’t Take It with You.

The cast will be led by two time Tony winner James Earl Jones.  Additional casting was announced yesterday.  The production will mark a reunion from the recent revival of The Best Man for Jones with actress Elizabeth Ashley and producers Jeffrey Richards and Trice.

The Little Rock Central alum has won a Tony for each of the past three seasons. This marks the first announced project for the Trice for the 2014-2015 season.

First performed on Broadway at the height of the Great Depression, it has not been revived on Broadway since 1983.  You Can’t Take It with You, by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, celebrates the American spirit as well as spirited family life.  Others in the cast, which is to be directed by multiple Tony nominee Scott Ellis, are Tony nominee Kristine Nielsen, Tony nominee Reg Rogers, Tony nominee Annaleigh Ashford, Theatre World winner Crystal A. Dickinson and stage veterans Byron Jennings and Julie Halston.

Trice at the 2014 Tony Awards

Trice at the 2014 Tony Awards

Mark Linn-Baker, who has cut his teeth on both stage and TV, is also in the cast. Others in the show include Marc Damon Johnson and Patrick Kerr. Three time Tony winner Jason Robert Brown is composing music for the play.

Performances will start at New York’s Longacre Theatre on August 26 with an official opening night of September 28.

Trice’s Tony Awards came for the 2014 Best Play All the Way, 2013 Best Play Revival Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the 2012 Best Musical Revival Porgy and Bess.  He also received a nomination for 2012 Best Play Revival for The Best Man.  This past year, of the 26 Tony Awards presented, seven went to shows produced by Jeffrey Richards and Will Trice.