So you think your family is weird? Come meet the ultimate in strange relations when Levels, the Great Neck Library’s cultural center for teens, presents the classic comedy, You Can’t Take It With You by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. Performances will be on Thursday, Jan. 14, Friday, Jan. 15, and Saturday, Jan. 16, at 8 p.m. in the auditorium of Saddle Rock Elementary School, 10 Hawthorne Lane in Great Neck.
Levels presents several fully staged theatrical productions a year, traditionally directed, produced and performed by students from seventh grade through college. Due to the Main Library’s renovation, Levels has been operating at Saddle Rock Elementary School and doing its smaller weekend events at the library’s Station Branch.
You Can’t Take It With You is the story of the Sycamore family, who live by their own rules: Grandpa raises snakes and doesn’t pay taxes because he doesn’t believe in them; mom can’t decide whether to be a terrible playwright or a terrible painter; dad makes dangerous fireworks in the basement with a delivery man who stopped by to chat and stayed for eight years; daughter Essie is an awful ballerina with a screaming Russian dance teacher and a weird husband who can’t stop playing the xylophone. When “normal” daughter, Alice, wants to bring her boyfriend’s rich and conservative parents over for dinner to impress them, a hilarious disaster is in the making.
The production is directed by North High School sophomore, and four-year Levels veteran, Rebecca Hirschhorn. Elaine Zhang is producer, with set design by Max Cruz, costume design by Simona Fine, makeup and hair design by Rayna Cooke and technical supervision by Tyler Hakimian. The cast, representing all five secondary schools, includes Joy Chang, Sara Chitsaz, Rayna Cooke, Max Cruz, Simona Fine, Phoebe Gordon, Gabby Henderson, Rebecca Hirschhorn, Daisy Korman, Alex Mousazadeh, Ishaan Pathak, Molly Racsko, James Ryan III, ZB Senft, Kate Smolens and Elaine Zhang.
Admission is free and open to the public. Tickets are intended to guarantee prime seating and can be requested at the circulation desks of all Great Neck Library facilities. Doors open 45 minutes before showtime for ticketholders and 15 minutes before showtime for non-ticketholders. Contact Levels at levels@greatneck library.org or 516-466-8055, ext. 216, for more information.
