News Release 07-097-D

Audition for “The Grapes of Wrath”

	News Release 07-097-D	For more information:
	Release date:02/05/08	Bentley Gilbert
	For immediate release	(541) 440-7747
	http://www.umpqua.edu/ 

Roseburg— Centerstage at Umpqua Community College will be holding auditions for the play, The Grapes of Wrath, on Tuesday, February 12, at 7 p.m. in Centerstage Theatre on the Umpqua Community College campus. The play is a Tony Award winning drama, based on the novel, of the same name, by John Steinbeck. Roles are available for 21 men and 10 women, ages 16 and older. Residents of Douglas County are invited to audition, whether they are students or non-students at the college. Previous acting experience is not required.

Scripts of The Grapes of Wrath are now available at the front desk of the college library for a one-day check-out. The play, directed by Dean Remick, will be presented in Centerstage Theatre in early March.

Renowned first as a novel, and then as a prize-winning motion picture, the story of the Joad family and their flight from the dust bowl of Oklahoma is familiar to all. Desperately proud, but reduced to poverty by the loss of their farm, the Joads pile their few possessions on a battered old truck and head west for California, hoping to find work and a better life. Led by the indomitable Ma Joad, who is determined to keep the family together at any cost, and by the volatile young Tom Joad, an ex-convict who grows increasingly impatient with the intolerance and exploitation which they encounter on their trek, the Joads must deal with death and terrible deprivation before reaching their destination—where their waning hopes are dealt a final blow by the stark realities of the Great Depression. And yet, despite the anguish and suffering which it depicts, the play becomes, in the final essence, a soaring and deeply moving affirmation of the indomitability of the human spirit, and of the essential goodness and strength which—then as now—resides in the hearts and minds of the "common man," throughout the world.

For more information about the play or auditions, call Dean Remick at 440-4694.