Director Maltby Will Take Her Final Bow With HPU Play

Hawaii Pacific University’s production of ‘You Can’t Take It With You’ opens April 3 on the Hawaii Loa campus. The cast includes (front, from left) Jan McGrath, Peter Clark, Melinda Maltby, (back) Allan Okubo, Stacey Johnson, Becky Maltby and Mary Ann Shirley-Gray. Photo by Malia Leinau.

For her 50th — and final — production at Hawaii Pacific University’s Paul and Vi Loo Theatre, professor of theatre Joyce Maltby is following in Broadway’s steps by producing You Can’t Take It With You, a 1930s play that recently wrapped a Broadway revival run.

You Can’t Take It With You is a three-act comedic play about an eccentric New York City family. When one daughter becomes engaged to a business executive from a rich family, she worries about how her new fiance and his parents will deal with her family’s baggage, which includes tax evasion, fireworks-building and snake wrangling. Written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama in 1937 and has since been adapted to film and various stage productions.

“(Maltby) wanted to leave with a comedy that is bound to make audiences happy, and this zany family will definitely leave them laughing,” explained the theatre’s publicity and box office coordinator Terry Olival. “(The play) has a message that is as relevant today as when it was first produced back in the 1930s.”

HPU’s production also includes a number of Windward residents, including Virginia Jones, Liz Stone, Patrick Torres, Tristan Williams, Ian Weiner, S. Rick Crump and Maltby herself.

You Can’t Take It With You runs April 3-26 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 4 p.m. Sundays. Tickets cost $20 for general admission, $15 for seniors, military, students and HPU faculty/staff, and $5 for HPU students.

For more information and for reservations, call 375-1282 or visit hpu.edu/theatre.