You Can’t Take it With You!

The latest production by Boulder’s VIVA theater troupe is running at the DAIRY arts theater in Boulder.
VIVA Theater started about 15 years ago as part of the Society for Creative Ageing. Their mission from the beginning has been to provide theater by, for and about older people. They have expanded somewhat and now they have younger actors also.

Steve Grad with VIVA tells KGNU’s Maeve Conran that this production of You Can’t Take it With You, an old timey radio play, has cast members ranging in age from their 20s to their 90s.

“Usually you have the grandparents and the parents going to see the kids in a school play, well this is the kids and the parents coming to see the grandparents in a play.”

You Can’t Take it With You! KGNU News

Jane Shepard, the music composer and sound effects designer for the play, says they’ve had to get creative in coming up with old-fashioned sound effects for the play.

Jane Shepard, the sound effects designer says people will get nostalgic for some of the sounds being used like an old fashioned door bell and telephone.

“We’ve had such a good time putting together the sound here. The really fun ones are…they needed a 1940’s handle pull calculator, a manual and we just couldn’t come by that. So that sound is comprised of a vice grip, which makes the key sound for the calculator, and then we have a bamboo mat which makes the sound of the handle, and then we’ve got someone wrinkling a little bit of paper which sounds like the paper moving forward in the machine. That’s one of our favorites, because we have to completely create it together as a team.”

Before the performance, Washboard Annie will provide a musical backdrop as the audience files into the auditorium. “We’re going to have some fun 30s tunes to go with it.”