Trailer for MHS production of ‘You Can’t Take It With You,’ video by Grace Prachthauser and Matt Ruiz
By Kevin Coughlin
Timing is everything.
Just ask Brandon Long, the male lead in this weekend’s Morristown High School production of You Can’t Take It With You.
He waited until his senior year to try out for a play.
It turned out to be the school’s first drama in more than a decade with dual casts. Long proved such a natural, the directing team tapped him to play suave leading man Tony Kirby with both casts.
Which means he gets to kiss two leading ladies– Victoria Fanning on Thursday and Friday, and Maggie Mustion on Saturday and Sunday.
“It was pretty good timing,” Long acknowledged after Wednesday’s dress rehearsal. “It’s my senior year, and I wanted to open up to new experiences.”
MADCAP CHALLENGES
You Can’t Take It With You, a madcap romp, cheered Depression-era audiences and won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, who honed his zany wit writing for the Marx Brothers.
It’s the sort of show that should resonate with anyone who has dreaded inflicting his or her family upon a new flame.
And it remains timely in other ways. Grandpa Vanderhof, played under heavy makeup in both Morristown productions by Steven Blenner, boasts of paying no income taxes for more than 20 years. (Sound familiar?)
Yet this show has been challenging on many fronts for the award-winning MHS drama department.
Students churned out an elaborate set from the school’s new manufacturing center. But auditorium scheduling conflicts cut their month-long setup in half. Props crashed from walls and doors froze shut during the final run-through.
And then there were the logistical challenges of rehearsing two sets of actors.
“The reason for the double-casting was because the amount of talent that came out was amazing,” said Producer Ralph Losanno. “We really didn’t want to cut kids who were so talented.”
Thirty-three actors participate; only five, including Long, appear in both casts. Another 30 students work as crew.
As if alternating rehearsals for two casts weren’t tricky enough, the school simultaneously is rehearsing its spring musical, Legally Blonde.
Spring rehearsals usually don’t start until January. But the singing and choreography of Legally Blonde are so technically demanding that Director Michael Maguire decided to get cracking right away, Losanno said.
The dancing is so strenuous, in fact, that some of the teen actors have been waived from gym classes, the producer said.
Approximately 20 students from You Can’t Take It With You— including Long, Fanning and Mustain– also are in Legally Blonde. Daily rehearsals for the first production have run from 3 pm to 6 pm, followed by rehearsals for the musical from 7 pm to 9 pm.
“How they’re balancing it, I don’t know,” Losanna said of the students.
Victoria Fanning’s thespian load is even heavier. As a member of the Performing Arts Company of the Mayo Performing Arts Center, she performed twice on Broadway last week–once with Kristin Chenoweth, and again before Stephen Schwartz and Stephen Sondheim at a Dramatists Guild gala.
Fanning rounded out the week singing with Broadway star Laura Benanti at MPAC’s Starlight Ball. She plans to audition for MPAC’s spring production as well.
“Sleep comes last,” quipped the junior, who enjoys a break “on the car ride from here to there.”
Slideshow photos by Kevin Coughlin
KISS AND TELL
For You Can’t Take It With You, Fanning initially feared a competitive situation with Mustain, also a junior.
Instead, she said, they share everything from notes to the same wardrobe–right down to the shoes worn onstage.
They both play Alice, the only sane member of the loony Sycamore clan and the object of Tony’s (Brandon Long’s) ardor. Who is the better Alice? Each points to her opposite number.
“If I watch Maggie, it’s a little intimidating,” said Fanning, who aspires to an acting career.
“Victoria will think of things–little movements, a twist–that I never ever would think of,” said Mustain, who fancies law.
They don’t even compete for their leading man. “She can have him,” Mustain said, magnanimously.
She admitted approaching her first stage kiss with some anxiety. But Fanning chimed in that everyone has handled the romantic scenes “professionally.”
Does that mean onion soup and garlic bread for lunch?
“It’s getting fully into the character, and thinking like the character’s mindset,” explained Long, who is more nervous about singing the role of Callahan next spring in Legally Blonde.
Until now, baseball has consumed his springtimes, with singing confined to the shower.
Long’s kid sister, Emmi, a star of Morristown’s Got Talent since she was about two feet tall, is coaching him on the vocals. Long sees some parallels between baseball and the stage: He doesn’t dwell on strikeouts or flubbed lines.
“It’s about keeping a level head. You’ve got to power through your mistakes,” he said.
Long never heard of You Can’t Take It With You before his audition. After seeing the movie, he conceded: “I’m not Jimmy Stewart.” But he shares Stewart’s diplomatic sensibility.
Asked which leading lady is the better kisser, Long replied without hesitation:
“They’re both great!”
Morristown High School Theatre presents ‘You Can’t Take It With You,’ Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016; Friday, Nov. 18, and Saturday, Nov. 19, at 7 pm; and Sunday, Nov. 20, at 2 pm. Tickets: $8 to $15. At 50 Early St.
