A Field Guide

Of Mice and Men

Portrait of John Steinbeck

goodread.com

Tortilla Flat Cannery Row East Of Mice and Men The Red

Pony The Grapes of Wrath

Cup of Gold

Of Mice and Men

The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath

East of Eden

Of Mice and Men

The

Many of us read Of Mice and Men when we were in High School. Some of us have read it

multiple times, while some just the once. I was the one that read it multiple times. The

journey of those two men was just so captivating, how could you not! It wasn’t until I was in

my freshman year of college that I even knew the novella, written by John Steinbeck, was

even a script. I immediately ordered a copy and read it. There weren’t many differences in

the script from the novella. It still tells the wonderful yet tragic story of George and Lennie,

and that ideal dream they so long for. I am a recent Texas State graduate with a degree in

Theatre Education. When first graduating, I went through a short period of time where I was

so “gung-ho” about going to graduate school for Directing, now as that is still my goal, it has

taken the backseat. I talked to a few directors, and looked up specific criteria I would need to

have in order to apply and get into grad school. All the information pointed to one thing;

experience. Where was I going to get experience? It can be extremely difficult to find

directing jobs, especially because I limited myself to San Antonio because I didn’t want to

leave this city and its theatre community behind. So I called The Playhouse and asked if they

would be willing to give me an internship, or an assistant directing position to further my

experience. I was fortunate enough to receive the offer to assistant direct Of Mice and Men. Now, I was a little bitter about

being offered this position, because I desired so badly to be IN the production. But I said yes, and I met with Jim a few weeks

later to discuss my duties. His first words to me were, if you are interested, just know that I am going to put you to work. He

wasn’t wrong. My duties as the assistant director were just what I needed. Not only was I going to be wearing the assistant

director hat, I was to also put on the hat of dramaturgy. For those of you who do not know what that is, that is the person who

does extensive studying over the time period, of the show. What was the lingo? What were important events that happened

during this time? What was the agriculture like? And many other things. So I studied the 1930’s, specifically focusing on the

year of 1937, which is when the story takes place. You can learn so much from doing your research. Understanding how difficult

it was to get a job, how difficult to survive not only helps your sympathize with these characters but it also makes you

appreciate where we are in 2015. Another job of mine was to assign the offstage lines and sound effects to the other actors.

Jim and I felt that to get a sense of authenticity for this show we would have the horseshoe games, and lines live off stage. That

deemed difficult at first because the timing needed to be just right and we didn’t want to take focus away from the importance

of the scenes going on onstage. But our actors were incredible and nailed it. One of my biggest duties was to create a short

showcase of the show, with the help of our understudies, which is something new to The Playhouse. I rehearsed with them in

our rehearsal room, and we cut two scenes down to showcase to an audience after one of the shows. The actors that I

specifically worked with, Chris Miller and Wes Smith, were such a delight to work with, and extremely smart. They sat in on our

table reads with the cast and even stood in for some actors when they were absent. Overall, words cannot express the

emotions that I went through as these characters took the first breath, as they grew, and as they matured over the period of

rehearsals. It was breathtaking to see such wonderful people take on the lonely and tragic characters that I loved so dearly. It

was an honor to see such a smart man, guide these actors along the way. I walk away from this experience confident, humbled,

and loved. Thank you to the actors for helping me fall in love all over again. Thank you to The Playhouse for giving me this

opportunity. And thank you to Jim, for teaching me, guiding me, and letting me be the young pup just sitting there wagging his

tail with excitement as the big dogs play in the fields. Please enjoy this show, be captivated, be engulfed and be overwhelmed

with the story that we tell.

Thank You.

A Note From The Assistant Director

Works Cited

tcm.com/tcmdb/title/470253/Of-Mice-and-Men

imdb.com/title/tt0031742

shmoop.com/john-steinbeck/timeline.html

mtycounty.com/pgs-mty-stnbeck/steinbeck-timeline.html

gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/great-depression/resources/mice-

and-men-and-migrant-farm-workers-great-depression

bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/prosemicemen/

Special Thanks To

City Council

project Funds