Central to perform two Steinbeck classics

By Kayla Gahagan, Journal staff | Thursday, December 04, 2008

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David Greff’s favorite play rehearsals are always the ones that include not only the actors onstage, but also the light and sound crews.

“It’s when all the magic happens,” the Central High School junior said on the set of the school’s “The Grapes of Wrath” rehearsal Monday afternoon.

But magic is about timing, and that’s what the students were working on during “marathon” rehearsals Monday and Tuesday when there were no classes. Rehearsing in two four-hour shifts both days, the directors used headsets to relay messages to the light and sound people — dim the lights slower here, fade out faster on the car engine, wait until everyone is off the stage.

“It’s the adrenaline rush of getting it correct,” said sound technician Scot Dobbs.

This year, Central’s theater department is doing something it’s never done before — rehearse and show two separate plays at one time.

“It’s been a learning process, but easier than I expected,” artistic director Justin Speck said, before directing students to roll a makeshift 1938 Model A Ford onto the stage for a scene.

Beginning today, the department will present “A Weekend of Steinbeck,” featuring “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Of Mice and Men.”

“Of Mice and Men” is a 1937 novella by written by John Steinbeck that tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers in Great Depression-era California.

“The Grapes of Wrath,” by the same author, was published two years later, and also was set during the Great Depression. It focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers, the Joads, driven from their home by drought, economic hardship and changes in the agriculture industry.

Technical director Joey Lore said part of the theater experience is understanding characters and how they lived.

“As an English teacher, it’s great to see them sinking their teeth into two great pieces of literature,” he said. “These people had no food, no water; we tried to give them a taste of history.”

Speck agreed.

“The first thing we learned about is the era and what was going on in history,” he said. That means the people the students are portraying in these plays didn’t have TVs and video games and computers. “Their only form of entertainment was hay rides and square dances and the harmonica.”

Because Central’s students are also experiencing an economic slowdown, there’s an extra connection with the characters they are portraying, he added.

More than 80 students are participating in the two plays, either by working on the set, sounds and lights, or by acting. The technical crews work after school and come in on Saturdays for the two-month stretch before the shows, Lore said.

“They take such ownership in what they create,” Lore said.

It’s one of the reasons the department has been so successful, he added. Another major reason is Speck.

“It’s his vision,” Lore said. “It’s definitely his passion for theater that the kids pick up on.”

The students and directors put in long hours for rehearsal, spending vacation days at the school when they could be doing something else. It’s worth it, Lore said.

“The ability to tell these stories with these kids, there’s no greater joy. We truly do become a family with each cast and crew.”

Contact Kayla Gahagan at 394-8410 or kayla.gahagan@rapidcityjournal.com

If you go

Tickets for "A Weekend of Steinbeck," featuring "Of Mice and Men" and "The Grapes of Wrath," are on sale at the Central High School box office, in the ole Decca Store adjacent to the auditorium. All seats are reserved and are $5.

-- 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 15 -- "Of Mice and Men"

All performances are in Central's auditorium.