Sunday, and You Can't Take It With You

Sunday morning, I drove to Front Royal and went to Mass at Christendom. During the Palestrina Choir practice, we practiced the choral responses to the Passion of St. Luke. After this, I went to Little Washington and watched the Christendom Players in action. This semester, they were performing You Can't Take It With You, which they all did remarkably well. I watched the matinée showing and the final performance, just so that I could get see both the regular version and the comic version.

The cast was an all-star cast:

• John C -- Grandpa Vanderhof
• Catherine T -- Penelope "Penny" Vanderhof Sycamore
• Andy Bodoh -- Paul Sycamore
• Grant D. -- Mr. De Pinna
• Adrienne S. -- Essie Sycamore Carmichael
• KC D. -- Ed Carmichael
• Shelagh B -- Alice Sycamore
• Emily S. -- Rheba
• Jon Pat M. -- Donald
• Julian A. -- Tony Kirby
• Kyle K. -- Wilbur C. Henderson
• Sam P. -- Mr. Boris Kolenkhov
• Anne Therese S. -- Grand Duchess Olga Katrina
• Bridget R. -- Gay Wellington
• Chris D. -- Mr. Kirby
• Cathy N. -- Mrs. Kirby
• Matt van L. -- Lead Federal Agent
• Joe V. -- Federal Agent #2 (Jim)
• John J. -- Federal Agent #3 (Mac)
There's a possibility that I have Federal Agents #'s 2&3 backwards. If I do, I'm sorry...

To be perfectly honest, the matinée performance was not as much fun as the final performance when comparing them side-to-side, but both plays were a lot of fun to watch. The personal animation that goes into making some of these characters, like Sam's Russian, Adrienne's dancing, Emily and Jon Pat's black impersonations, and Grant's eccentricities (wait -- was that last one really acting???) is simply amazing. It was also very refreshing to see recurring actors like Julian, John J., and Sam get differing parts, where they can't act off each other -- it really shows their natural talents to be able to work with any group of people and give simply amazing performances. I include John J. in this list because he was the director as well as an agent. Julian and Sam had two of the bigger roles, and they were simply incredible.

In between shows, I went to the Griffin Tavern and met up with Emma, Laurel, M.C., JD, Greg M., Mary B., Emily G., Breanna H., and Andy C. After the final performance, most of us went to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream. I took off about midnight and went back to the apartment. Along the way, I got rather tired, so I took a quick nap in Manassas, and got back to the apartment at about 2:00 AM.