Well I’m sitting in the beautiful new lobby hereat the Elkhart Civic Theater.

And you can't take it with you, but we're taking it here todayall in together, right?

The next performance coming up.

I mean, this is kindof a classic, if you will.

And Dave, you're directingit this time, right?

Right.

And this production has been aroundsince the 1930s is I mean, 36 is when the play came outand I think then, late 30s or maybe 1940,the movie came out okay.

But it's, George,George Kaufman, Moss Hart comedy and, some people thinkit's possibly their best.

Oh, it's, it's a classic.

It's a classic.

And it's,about a family of people who are somewhat eccentric in their own way, which I feellike many of us can relate to.

Right?

We all have family members who are eccentric and uniquein their own ways.

That's right.And then they have one.

They have there's one of thedaughters who is, more or less normal and has fallen in lovewith the boss's white boss's son and is, and wants to bring him hometo meet the family.

But she's embarrassed becauseshe knows her family is weird.

And, hilarity ensues, basically.

Okay.

We have, all kinds of differentsorts of people, including Sharon Weisman, who plays Pennyin the play Penny Sycamore.

Okay, so tell me about this rolethat you're playing, Sharon.

Well, she is the mother, the matriarch, basically,of the family, of the eccentric familyof the offense.

Okay.

Yes.

Although she thinks everybody'snormal.

Of course.

Yes.

And, she has some eccentricqualities.

She, paints, she, writes plays, but doesn'tdo any of them very well.

But she thinks about.

And, she's, kind of, I don'tknow, blunt would be the word.

Okay.

But she doesn't.

She's very nice.Not trying to be mean.

She just says what she says.

Yes.

And.

Yeah, she wantsto get her daughter married.

I love it.

Do you have any waythat you relate your own personal lifeinto that role, or anythingyou've been writing about from?

I don't know how they tell youI'm a.

No.

But probably thethe family being number one.

That's her goal.Her family is number one.

She wants the best for her.

For both of her daughters.

Everybody and friends.

She's it's it's very inviting.I hope to think, like that.

You know, anybody can come inand the couple characters do and stay a long time.

And I think that's what peopleprobably get when they come in.

Is that what you're hopingthey walk away with is.

Yeah.

The familyand people are unusual.

Depending on your perspective,anyone can be kind of eccentric.

But, there'sthere's also sort of a, a message of, sort of like,don't worry, be happy.

Kind of thing.

The patriarch of the familyis, grandpa named Martin Vanderhoff, who quit goingto work 35 years ago and is, been happier ever since.

And so, and he, he's sort of maybe the philosophical coreof the story.

Interesting.

And, and he, you know, he's he'sthe one who in he'sreally not a huge anarchist.

He just doesn't careto get involved in the world in the same waythat other people do.

Okay.

And now, Dave,you're directing this one.

I know it's been a minutesince you and I have talked about directing.

What has it been likedirecting this particular cast?

Well, directing this one is,it's a classic, classic play.

So you kind of have to be trueto it.

And it's not the sort of thingthat I would take.

And, you know,you can't update it.

Yeah.

Play around with actors.

It's got to be what it is.

And, the the authors arepretty intentional about that.

And, the other thing is you just haveto have good people and trust them that they know you know, how to deliver the,the stuff and, deliver their lines and,you know, play the characters.

And we have a pretty good castfor that.

And you guys always havephenomenal actors here at the theater.I mean, you talk to that.

I mean, I knowpeople are new to the theater.

This is not your first timeaway, is it?

No.

Okay.

But bringing in new peopleand also those were your veteran,you know, see, you know, we we I think to some degree it'sbecause of the material that we do becausewe don't necessarily, do the, the moreI don't know, I don't know what you would call the pop,the pop type music or the more the more, trendy kinds of things.

Doesn't meanwe don't do new stuff because we do sometimes,but we don't, we do stuff that we think is going to challenge our actorsa little bit, and the actors learn from thatand get better at it.

And even though this is a show that's been aroundfor a long time and a lot of people have seenthe movie, it's not the sort of showyou can step into and say, well, I'll just do it like so-and-sodid it in the movie.

It it requires your ownkind of interpretation and some skill toto deliver on it.

Absolutely.

And Shannon, what is your experiencebeen like that?

Do have you seen this productionbefore either on.

I have not I've seen the movie.You have seen it.

There's actuallytwo versions of the movie.

The character that I play,the movie that I saw, Jean Stapleton from all onthe family, played my role.

Okay,so if you kind of look at her and all on the family,it's kind of sorta.

Even thoughshe's not as crazy as that.

It's sort of, that kindof character that she plays.

Yeah, it's a realput into your own role, and it's a really funny, showthat has actually a good moral.

You know, atthe end is a family.

Family for this.Oh, yeah.

It is.

Okay.

That's good to know.

And how can peopleget their tickets or when are the performances?

Well, the performances are,start September 12th, 13th and 19th, 20th and 21st.

Okay, so.

And the last and the 21st isour matinee on the on a Sunday.

You get, tickets, for, this show by going toElkhart Civic Theater.

dot ORG And I believe it's.

Why.

Oh, you two.

But if you go to the main page,we can get your ticket in there and click on ticketsyou're going to get.

You're going to getyou're going to get there.

Yeah.

Now I can't say enough about we're sitting in the lobbywhich is newly remodeled.

It's actually newly restored.

It's stored okay.

And it is beautiful.

You guys have donea tremendous job.

I know you had wonderful community supportto make this happen too.

Yeah, yeah, we had.

So we had waterdamage here in the lobby, from some, plumbing failuresupstairs.

And, we're really right now atjust about the end of the work, there'sjust a little bit more to do, and then it'll be all readyfor the public.

But it it really we didn'twe didn't, really miss a beat in terms of shows.

We still had our summerproduction and, you know, we had, youknow, plywood on the floor here.

We're still goingto get you in the door for this, but but people, people could still go to the auditoriumbecause that wasn't damaged.

And so it, it allit all came out okay basically.

I love it.

What's nexton the docket for you guys here?

Next up on the docket is a youthproduction in October called, the, Greek.

What is it called?

Greek mythology.

Olympia.

Gans.

It is, it's.

I did that one before.

Have never heard of it.

No, I don't.

It's a, it's a it's it's a, kind of an anthology of Greekmythology with humorous twists.

And our kids from 8 to 18, will be having a good timewith that.

The auditions are actuallycoming up fairly soon as well.

Make sure you gogo on the website.

You can findthe audition dates as well.

And then after thatwe're doing a show which was, it's a Stephen Sondheimmusical called Merrily We Roll Along,and that will be in November.

And that's sort of a Broadwaystory about playwright and, musical writers, you know, and so it'sit'll be a lot of fun.

And for Sondheim's terrific.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, thank you guysso much for sharing.

We will see you up on the stage.Thank you.

Make sureyou guys get your tickets.