The Paly student production, “You Can’t Take it With You,” opened Thursday night in the Haymarket Theatre, thrilling the audience with superb acting, humor and romance.

The play, set in the New York of the 1930s, follows an eccentric family, the Sycamores, and the engagement of Alice Sycamore (Mika Ben-Shaul) to Tony Kirby (Alex Nee), who is from a more traditional family.

Alice and Tony’s marital happiness is stifled by the friction between the two families. Penelope Sycamore (Adrienne Losch), Alice’s mother, is an aspiring playwrite and painter, her father (Alex Rose-Henig) and family friend Mr. De Pinna (Alexander Gaya) make fireworks in the basement, and her sister, Essie (Keely Flanagan) fancies herself a ballerina. Tony’s father (Charles Holland) works on Wall Street, and his mother (Grace Morrison) likewise is upright and conventional.

The play opens with a beautiful a cappella number, sung by Antonia Blumberg, Kelly Hafner, Karen Heinselman and Theda Howard, who are on a radio program hosted by an announcer, played by David Fisher.

The first act follows Tony and Alice’s proposal, with Nee excelling as the lovesick Tony, and introduces the Sycamore family, with hilarious ensemble acting. Boris Kolenkhov (Nathan Wilen) also appears as Essie’s Russian ballet teacher, earning laughs with his humorous accent and Russian mannerisms.

The second act escalates the comedy, beginning with Gay Wellington (Emma Steuer), a drunken actress, passing out on the couch. Rheba (Kimi Forlenza), the maid, and her boyfriend Donald (Christian Guerrero), also, put on excellent performances. The second ends with an unexpected twist, and a literal bang.

The third act resolves the play with humor and warmth, and also features Olga (Nanor Balabanian), a Russian countess, who cooks the family blinis.

Despite the excellent ensemble scene, Grandpa (Andrew Nizamian) steals the show with excellent deadpan delivery of his lines. Throughout the show, Nizamian superbly portrays the patriarch of the Sycamore family, and embodies the play’s moral of enjoying life as it comes.

The play’s message, do what you love, is appropriate and fits well into the story, without weighing down the humor with unnecessary sermonizing.

At the play’s close, Grandpa says, “How many of us would be willing to settle when we’re young for what we eventually get? All those plans we make? What happens to them? It’s only a handful of the lucky ones that can look back and say they even came close.”

The tech crew extended the stage and transformed it into the Sycamore’s apartment, with a dining area, a snake tank, a typewriter, sofas, and a skull full of candy.

“You Can’t Take it With You” was opened in 1936, and won the Pulitzer Pride for Literature that same year. The movie adaptation won two Oscars in 1938.

The play was the first Paly production directed by new drama teacher, Kathleen Woods.

Full of humor, romance and a few surprise twists, “You Can’t Take it With You,” is an excellent way to spent an evening.

The play can be seen on Nov. 10, 16, 17 and 18; tickets are on sale in the auditor’s office, and the play runs for about two and a half hours.