Loyola’s Theatre Department is producing their first play of the season: “You Can’t Take It With You,” by George Kaufman and Moss Hart.

Written in 1935, this lighthearted comedy was one of the first of its time to create a family sitcom with a theme of doing what makes you happy.

Anne-Liese Fox, former theatre professor at Loyola and director of the play, was invited back to help execute Kaufman and Hart’s vision.

“After teaching part time, it felt great to come back as a guest director,” Fox said. “It was like coming home. A lot of my former students were now my colleagues. I had been able to see a pretty exciting generation of artists that I’ve taught at Loyola that are in the community doing great things.”

Directing this play was a little bit different than what Fox was used to, however.

“I had done a lot of adaptations of classical texts in the past,” she said. “For this play, I really listened to every single word in the script. My job was to obey the text and find creative ways to bring it to life.”

Because the show is very prop heavy, Fox brought in a lot of old pictures to frame the set.

“My house that I grew up in was very much like the Vanderof house in the play,” Fox said. “My mother never threw anything away, so at any moment in my adult life I could find a toy that I played with as a child. I used some of these toys as props for some of the characters.”

For theatre freshman Jonelle Foye-Fernandez, this was his first audition at Loyola.

“My role in the play was G-man, one of the policemen” Foye-Fernandez said. “I had to understand who I was as a character and not just memorize lines. As a policeman in the play, I didn’t know those people, so I would separate myself from the other cast members to really get into character.”

Being that this isn’t his first audition at Loyola, Zach Boylan, theatre sophomore and Grandpa Martin Vanderof in the play, said he got to play his favorite character.

“I had a history with playing elderly roles,” Boylan said. “I thought I could portray his type of humor well. Even though Grandpa didn’t move much in the play, I added mannerisms, fixed my posture, and was slow and deliberate with all my movements to help me get into the mind-space of Grandpa.”

While in character, Boylan related to grandpa’s monologues.

“Grandpa’s philosophy definitely appeals to me,” he said. “He thinks that everyone should contribute to society in ways they want to and not worry about all the little things and stress. Basically, don’t do something in life that you don’t want to do. As a theatre major, I relate to that because the field that I want to get into isn’t a safe field. I’m doing it because I love it, and that’s Grandpa’s philosophy.”

The show premieres on October 4th at 7:30 p.m. and runs this weekend and next.