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Script is written by: Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman

Set and Time Adaptation By: Gretchen Ugalde
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CHARACTERS

Penelope Sycamore Play writer and painter. These are hobbies that make
her happy, but she is terrible at it.

Essie Dancer and candy maker.

Rheba Cook to the Sycamore family, and part of the

household.

Paul Sycamore Firework manufacturer.

Mr. De Pinna He helps Mr. Sycamore make fireworks and is a model

for Mrs. Sycamore’s paintings.

Ed A xylophone player, and distributes Essie's candies.

Donald Boyfriend of Rheba, who seems to serve as volunteer

handyman for the Sycamores.

Martin Vanderhof Referred to mostly as Grandpa in the play. An eccentric

happy old man who has never paid his income
tax because he doesn't believe in it.

Alice The only “normal” family member.

Henderson An employee of the IRS.

Tony Kirby Vice president of Kirby and Co.

Bores Kolenkhov A Russian who escaped to America shortly before the

Russian Revolution.

Gay Wellington A drunk actress whom Mrs. Sycamore meets on a bus and invites
home to read one of her plays.

Mr. Kirby President of Kirby and Co. and secretly despises his job.

Mrs. Kirby An extremely prim and proper woman and is horrified

by the goings-on in the Sycamore household.
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Three Men Three agents who come to investigate Ed because of

the communist quotes he prints up and places in
Essie's candy boxes, such as "God is the State – the
State is God".

The Grand Duchess

Olga Katrina Olga She was one of the Grand Duchesses of Russia before
the Revolution, another being her sister, the Grand
Duchess Natasha. Since then she has been forced to
flee to America where she has found work as
a waitress in Childs Restaurant.
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SETTING

The scene is the home of Martin Vanderhof (Grandpa), New York

TIME

Act 1: A Wednesday evening.

The Vanderhof-Sycamore-Carmichael’s 1938 home.

Act 2: A week later.

The Vanderhof-Sycamore-Carmichael’s 1938 home
With a 2018 backdrop.

Act 3: The next day.

The Vanderhof-Sycamore-Carmichael’s 1938 home
With a 2018 backdrop and
A 2018 costume change (For the Kirby family).
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ACT 1

SCENE 1:
The home of MARTIN VANDERHOF- just around the corner
from Columbia University, but don’t go looking for it. The
room we see is what is customarily described as a living
room, but in this house the term is something of an
understatement. The every-man-for-himself room would be
more like it. For here meals are eaten, plays are written,
snakes collected, ballet steps practiced, xylophones played,
printing presses operated- if there were room enough there
would probably be ice skating. In short, the brood presided
over by MARTIN VANDERHOF goes on about the business of
living in the fullest sense of the world. From GRANDPA
VANDERHOF down, they are individualists. This is a house
where you do as you like, and no questions asked.

At this moment, GRANDPA VANDERHOF’S daughter, MRS.

PENELOPE SYCAMORE, is doing what she likes more than
anything in the world. She is writing a play- her eleventh.
Comfortably ensconced in what is affectionately known as
Mother’s Corner, she is pondering away on a typewriter
perched precariously on a rickety card table. Also on the
table is one of those plaster-Paris skulls ordinarily used as
an ashtray, but which serves PENELOPE as a candy jar. And,
because PENNY likes companionship, there are two kittens
on the table, busily lapping at a saucer of milk.

PENELOPE VANDERHOF SYCAMORE is a round little woman

in her early fifties, comfortable looking, gentle, homey. One
would not suspect that under that placid exterior there
surges the Divine Urge- but it does, it does.

After a moment her fingers lag Abstractedly she takes a

piece of candy out of the skull, pops it into her mouth. As
always, it furnishes the needed inspiration- with a furious
burst of speed she finishes a page and whips it out of the
machine. Quite mechanically, she picks up one of the
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kittens, adds the sheet of paper to the pile underneath,

replaces the kitten.

As she goes back to work, ESSIE CARMICHAEL, MRS.

SYCAMORE’S eldest daughter, comes in from the kitchen. A
girl of about twenty-nine, very slight, a curious air of the
pixie about her. She is wearing ballet slippers- in fact, she
wears them throughout the play.

ESSIE: My, that kitchen’s hot.

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