Of Mice & Men Study Guide

Contents

About The Cleveland Play House pg. 2 Of Mice & Men

Exploring the Play About the Author & Playwright pg. 3 Synopsis pg. 4 Cast of Characters pg. 4 Fact & Figures pg. 5 Exploring the Context The Great Depression pg. 7 Exercises pg. 8

California in the Depression pg. 9 Time Line of the Dust Bowl pg. 11

Migrant Workers pg. 15 Migrant Workers in Washington State pg. 17

Migrant Workers Today pg. 23 Social Aggression & the American Dream pg. 26 Exercises pg. 32 Activity Sheets Character Objective pg. 34 Theme pg. 35 A Good Plot pg. 36 The American Dream pg. 37 Who Makes the Show? pg. 38 Be a Theatre Critic pg. 39

Written by: Kristoffer Diaz, Education Associate Prithi Kanakamedala, Independent Dramaturge

Edited by: Domenick Danza, Education Director

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The Cleveland Play House

The Cleveland Play House, America’s first permanently established professional theatre company, is an artist-inspired producing theatre who once had a core company comprised of many of the nation’s most accomplished theatrical professionals. The Cleveland Play House serves its community through the unique experience of live performances by telling a story that is entertaining, relevant and thought-provoking. We are the region’s most vital forum for the interactive exchange of ideas about the great truths and mysteries of human existence. Founded in 1915, the Play House is the oldest professional regional theatre in the United States. Paul Newman, Joel Grey and Jack Weston are among the many actors whose careers began at the Play House, which also operates the nation’s oldest community-based theatre education programming. In the early 1900s, Cleveland theatre featured mostly vaudeville, melodrama, burlesque and light entertainment, but a select group of Clevelanders sought plays of substance on timely topics. Together they formed The Cleveland Play House and founded a home in a farmhouse donated by Cleveland industrialist Francis Drury. Ultimately, Drury helped fund its permanent home at East 85th and Euclid Avenue. The original Play House was built in 1927 to house two theatres. In 1949 the Play House opened the 77th Street Theatre in a converted church, which featured America’s first open stage – the forerunner of the thrust stage that was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1983 the 77th Street Theatre closed and Philip Johnson’s addition to the original facility opened, making The Cleveland Play House the largest regional theatre in the country.

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Of Mice & Men EXPLORING THE PLAY

About the Author & Playwright – John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck (1902 – 1968) was one of the greatest social novelists in the history of the United States. His work often dealt with rural poverty in the American West, more specifically, California, during the years of The Great Depression. Born in the small agricultural town of Salinas, California, Steinbeck felt a personal affiliation with the migrant workers and poor farmers who would come to populate his novels. In fact, during his high school years, Steinbeck spent his vacations working on local farms and ranches. Steinbeck, however, always planned to be a writer. He attended Stanford University, but did not graduate. He later moved to New York, where he failed in his attempts to become a working freelance writer. Upon returning to California, Steinbeck discovered his artistic calling: creating naturalistic and socially aware novels that expressed and humanized the plight of rural California. Of Mice and Men (1937) was his first critical and commercial success. It was followed in 1939 by his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath. Other notable works include East of Eden (1952), The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), and Travels with Charley (1962), a chronicle of Steinbeck’s three-month trip across forty states with his poodle Charley. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature. After his death, the New York Times said of Steinbeck’s legacy: “…it lives on in the works of innumerable writers who learned from him how to present the forgotten man unforgettably.”

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Of Mice & Men - Synopsis George and his best friend Lennie are migrant ranch hands, traveling along the Salinas River in search of their next farm job. Lennie is strong but simpleminded; he has a sweet heart and a child’s innocence. However, he doesn’t know his own strength, and this has gotten him into serious trouble in other towns. George does the planning for the duo. They hope to stick together and raise enough money to buy a farm of their own to live on with rabbits for Lennie to play with and raise. Once George and Lennie begin working on the new farm, Lennie becomes an instant bullying target for Curley, the boss’s son. Curley pushes Lennie too far though, and Lennie uses his incredible strength to crush Curley’s hand. Curley’s wife is intrigued by the strong and often silent Lennie, and she attempts to get closer to him in private—something that George had warned Lennie against. At first, their meeting is harmless. Lennie opens up about his dreams of tending rabbits, and Curley’s wife tells him about her dreams of starring in pictures. When their conversation gets more intimate though, Lennie loses control and accidentally kills her. Lennie flees the farm and heads to a prearranged meeting place where he was told to wait for George if something went wrong. George discovers what Lennie has done and quickly realizes that their dreams of moving on and living peacefully can never be fulfilled. George finds Lennie at the meeting place and, with an angry mob led by Curley hot on Lennie’s trail, decides that he has no choice but to put Lennie down for his own good.

Of Mice & Men - Cast of Characters George: a ranch hand; friend and caretaker to Lennie, a “short” man. Lennie: a ranch hand; friend to George; “simple minded”; a “big fellow.” Candy: a “stoop shouldered old man.” The Boss: superintendent of a big land company. Curley: The Boss’s son; “alla time pickin’ scraps with big guys.” Curley’s Wife: a “tart.” Slim: a “big, tall skinner” who “stands and moves with a kind of majesty.” Carlson: a “big-stomached, powerful” ranch hand. Whit: a ranch hand. Crooks: a “lean-faced Negro with pained eyes.”

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Of Mice & Men - Fact & Figures

Original film poster

Steinbeck drew the title Of Mice and Men from a line by Scottish poet Robert Burns, translated as: “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.” The novel was a Book of the Month club selection even before it was published in 1937, leading to 117,000 copies being sold in advance of publication. Steinbeck wrote the novel as a potential play. He limited each chapter to a single scene in a single location. When the novel became such an instant success, Steinbeck worked with director George Kaufman to create a stage version. The play was originally produced on Broadway on November 23, 1937, and opened to great reviews, winning the prestigious New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and running for 207 performances. Of Mice and Men has been adapted into at least five films, including the original in 1939, and the famous John Malkovich/Gary Sinise 1992 remake. The novel has been challenged, banned, and removed from libraries and public schools throughout the country because of its language, racial content, and ending, with some critics claimed promoted euthanasia (the act of ending the life of someone suffering through terminal illness or another incurable problem). Following is a partial list of bannings and challenges (attempts to have the book banned), listed by city or town:

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BANNINGS: Syracuse, Indiana, 1974; Oil City, Pennsylvania, 1977; Grand Blanc, Michigan, 1979; Continental, Ohio, 1980; Skyline High School, Scottsboro, Alabama, 1983. CHALLENGES: Greenville, South Carolina, 1977; Vernon-Verona- Sherill, New York, School District, 1980; St. David, Arizona, 1981; Telly City, Indiana, 1982; Knoxville, Tennessee, School Board, 1984. Steinbeck's novel was removed from Tennessee public schools in 1984 when the School Board Chair promised to remove all "filthy books" from public school curricula and libraries. This classic was also banned from a public school in Ohio in 1980.

Steinbeck in the late 60s

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Of Mice & Men EXPLORING THE CONTEXT

The Great Depression

Migrant Mother by Photographer Dorothea Lange

The 1920s, sometimes known as the Roaring Twenties, were a period of great national prosperity for the United States. The United States had become the richest country on Earth following World War I. A major cause was the strength of industrial innovations such as mass production, which allowed technological products, including automobiles and radios, to be developed and sold more cheaply. Credit and loans became readily available, and many citizens used this credit to speculate on the stock market, becoming even wealthier. In late October 1929, however, the stock market crashed. Investors rapidly sold off their stocks as the value of their investments plummeted. Banks, which had lent money to investors to purchase stock, were losing that money at unprecedented rates, forcing them

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to go out of business. With the banks out of business, and with individual investors having lost their savings, other businesses were forced to close, sending unemployment rates sky-high. The nation was in crisis. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 kicked off The Great Depression, the worst economic collapse in the history of the industrialized world. Wealth was not spread evenly throughout the United States. The richest .1% of society earned the same total income as the poorest 42%. The wealthiest citizens did not need to buy new products and chose to save their money instead. The most impoverished citizens were too poor to buy new products. As a result, manufacturers were producing more goods than they could sell, disrupting the economic system known as supply and demand. There were simply more products available than people wanted to buy; the supply was much higher than the demand. The United States economy began to crumble. Fifteen million Americans – one quarter of the work force – were unemployed. No group within the United States society was spared. In Ohio, fifty percent of the Cleveland work force and eighty percent of Toledo’s work force were out of jobs. Farmers and other rural workers were hit equally as hard, as prices for crops fell by forty to sixty percent. African Americans were hit particularly hard, as their jobs were often taken away and given to newly unemployed white workers; in 1930, one out of every two African-Americans was unemployed. EXERCISES 1. Research the Great Depression and the New Deal and how they affected Ohioans. Here are some websites to help you: www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=500www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/depressionwww.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htmhttp://newdeal.feri.org/

a) What was the population of Cleveland and Toledo during the Great Depression?

b) Using the unemployment percentages listed above, calculate how many people were unemployed in Cleveland and Toledo during the Great Depression.

c) What percentage of the population (approximately) is unemployed in Cleveland and Toledo today?

d) Using this unemployment percentage, calculate how many people are unemployed in Cleveland and Toledo today.

e) Compare and discus these unemployment percentages and the actual number of unemployed people in Cleveland and Toledo during the Great Depression and today.

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California in the Depression

Migrant workers 1936

Californians suffered through The Depression as intensely as the rest of the nation. Unemployment throughout the state reached twenty-eight percent by 1932. In 1934, over one-fifth of the state’s population was receiving some type of public assistance. As a whole, California farm income was sliced in half from 1929 to 1932, just three years after the Stock Market Crash. With employment so scarce, California residents began to fear that recent immigrants were taking jobs from native-born workers. In 1935 Congress passed the Filipino Repatriation Act, offering to pay the transportation expenses of any Filipinos who wished to return to their homeland. The hope was that this would reduce population and open up employment opportunities. Mexican immigrants were also targeted through similar programs. Almost one hundred thousand Mexicans were deported, either voluntarily or through force. California’s depression woes were made worse by the arrival of residents of the Great Plains who were fleeing the effects of the Dust Bowl – a series of massive dust storms that had rendered much of the nation’s farmland uninhabitable. Many years of poor farming techniques combined with an ongoing, multi-year drought to dry out soil throughout many states including Oklahoma, Texas, the Dakotas, and Montana.

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The soil was then picked up by high winds and carried throughout the country, forcing many citizens to abandon their homes. As much as fifteen percent of the population of Oklahoma left the state. These Dust Bowl refugees often became migrant workers, moving from town to town or even state to state in search of their next temporary farming job. John Steinbeck told the story of a family of displaced Dust Bowl farmers in The Grapes of Wrath, which is often considered his masterpiece and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.

Toward Los Angeles, California. 1937. Photographer: Dorothea Lange. Perhaps 2.5 million people abandoned their homes in the South and the Great Plains during the

Great Depression and went on the road.

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Timeline of The Dust Bowl http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/timeline/

A dust storm

1931

Severe drought hits the midwestern and southern plains. As the crops die, the “black blizzards" begin. Dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed land begins to blow.

1932 The number of dust storms is increasing. Fourteen are reported this year; next year there will be 38.

1933 March: When Franklin Roosevelt takes office, the country is in desperate straits. He took quick steps to declare a four-day bank holiday, during which time Congress came up with the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, which stabilized the banking industry and restored people's faith in the banking system by putting the federal government behind it. May: The Emergency Farm Mortgage Act allots $200 million for refinancing mortgages to help farmers facing foreclosure. The Farm Credit Act of 1933 established a local bank and set up local credit associations. September: Over 6 million young pigs are slaughtered to stabilize prices with most of the meat going to waste, public outcry led to the creation, in October, of the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation. The FSRC diverted agricultural commodities to relief organizations. Apples, beans, canned beef, flour and pork products were distributed through local relief channels. Cotton goods were eventually included to clothe the needy as well. October: In California's San Joaquin Valley, where many farmers fleeing the plains have gone, seeking migrant farm work, the largest agricultural strike in America's history begins. More than 18,000 cotton workers with the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU) went on strike for 24 days. During the strike, two men and one woman were killed and hundreds injured. In the settlement, the union was recognized by growers, and workers were given a 25 percent raise.

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The aftereffects of a dust storm

1934

May: Great dust storms spread from the Dust Bowl area. The drought is the worst ever in U.S. history, covering more than 75 percent of the country and affecting 27 states severely. June: The Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act is approved. This act restricted the ability of banks to dispossess farmers in times of distress. Originally effective until 1938, the act was renewed four times until 1947, when it expired. Roosevelt signs the Taylor Grazing Act, which allows him to take up to 140 million acres of federally-owned land out of the public domain and establish grazing districts that will be carefully monitored. One of many New Deal efforts to reverse the damage done to the land by overuse, the program was able to arrest the deterioration, but couldn't undo the historical damage. December: The "Yearbook of Agriculture" for 1934 announces, "Approximately 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land have essentially been destroyed for crop production. . . . 100 million acres now in crops have lost all or most of the topsoil; 125 million acres of land now in crops are rapidly losing topsoil. . . "

1935 January 15: The federal government forms a Drought Relief Service to coordinate relief activities. The DRS bought cattle in counties that were designated emergency areas, for $14 to $20 a head. Those unfit for human consumption - more than 50 percent at the beginning of the program - were destroyed. The remaining cattle were given to the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation to be used in food distribution to families nationwide. Although it was difficult for farmers to give up their herds, the cattle slaughter program helped many of them avoid bankruptcy. "The government cattle buying program was a God-send to many farmers, as they could not afford to keep their cattle, and the government paid a better price than they could obtain in local markets." April 8: FDR approves the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, which provides $525 million for drought relief, and authorizes creation of the Works Progress Administration, which would employ 8.5 million people.

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April 14: Black Sunday. The worst "black blizzard" of the Dust Bowl occurs, causing extensive damage. April 27: Congress declares soil erosion "a national menace" in an act establishing the Soil Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture (formerly the Soil Erosion Service in the U.S. Department of Interior). Under the direction of Hugh H. Bennett, the SCS developed extensive conservation programs that retained topsoil and prevented irreparable damage to the land. Farming techniques such as strip cropping, terracing, crop rotation, contour plowing, and cover crops were advocated. Farmers were paid to practice soil-conserving farming techniques. December: At a meeting in Pueblo, Colorado, experts estimate that 850,000,000 tons of topsoil has blown off the Southern Plains during the course of the year, and that if the drought continued, the total area affected would increase from 4,350,000 acres to 5,350,000 acres in the spring of 1936. C.H. Wilson of the Resettlement Administration proposes buying up 2,250,000 acres and retiring it from cultivation.

Dust storm 1936

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1936 February: Los Angeles Police Chief James E. Davis sends 125 policemen to patrol the borders of Arizona and Oregon to keep "undesirables" out. As a result, the American Civil Liberties Union sues the city. May: The SCS publishes a soil conservation district law, which, if passed by the states, allows farmers to set up their own districts to enforce soil conservation practices for five-year periods. One of the few grassroots organizations set up by the New Deal still in operation, the soil conservation district program recognized that new farming methods needed to be accepted and enforced by the farmers on the land rather than bureaucrats in Washington.

Approaching dust storm in Texas

1937

March: Roosevelt addresses the nation in his second inaugural address, stating, "I see one-third of the nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished . . . the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." FDR's Shelterbelt Project begins. The project called for large-scale planting of trees across the Great Plains, stretching in a 100-mile wide zone from Canada to northern Texas, to protect the land from erosion. Native trees, such as red cedar and green ash, were planted along fence rows separating properties, and farmers were paid to plant and cultivate them. The project was estimated to cost 75 million dollars over a period of 12 years. When disputes arose over funding sources (the project was considered to be a long-term strategy, and therefore ineligible for emergency relief funds), FDR transferred the program to the WPA, where the project had limited success.

1938 The extensive work re-plowing the land into furrows, planting trees in shelterbelts, and other conservation methods has resulted in a 65 percent reduction in the amount of soil blowing. However, the drought continued.

1939 In the fall, the rain comes, finally bringing an end to the drought. During the next few years, with the coming of World War II, the country is pulled out of the Depression and the plains once again become golden with wheat.

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Migrant Workers

What are Migrant Workers?

American Migrant Workers - 1936

* FACT They are people who might be born in another country, state or city and travel to work in another place. * FACT Unlike regular workers, migrant workers usually work in labor-intensive jobs (farm work or construction for example), get paid in cash, and have little other benefits such as a retirement fund or medical insurance. They certainly don't work at a desk with a computer and phone! * FACT In the past, migrant workers, such as George and Lennie, would literally move to wherever the work was, therefore they would have no fixed home address. Today, this is less true, but the work is still hard!

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* FACT By the time that Of Mice and Men was published almost half of America's grain was harvested by huge combine harvesters. In other words, 5 men could do what would have taken 350 men a few years earlier. George and Lennie are some of the last of the migrant farm workers. * FACT Huge numbers of men travelled the countryside between the 1880s and early 1930s harvesting wheat. They earned $2.50 or $3.00 a day, plus food and very basic accommodation. * FACT During the 1930s, when there was very high unemployment in the United States, agencies were set up under the Government's New Deal to send farmworkers to where they were needed. George and Lennie got their work cards from Murray and Ready's, one of those type of agencies.

Migrant Workers in the Field

* QUESTION Reading the following article (http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/mice/migartcl.html) and answer these questions:

a) Name two ethnicities of the earliest migrant workers (part 3 and part 4). b) Why did the Government ask Mexicans to work in the fields during World

War II (part 5)? c) Name the new group of people who helped in the fields during the 1960s

(part 8). d) List the differences that the article mentions between migrant workers in the

1920/30s to the present day (part 13).

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Migrant Workers in Washington State: a Boon to the Tree Fruit Industry

Photo by Harold A. Laney, courtesy of the Washington Apple Commission.

Sons and Daughters of Dustbowl Migrants Pick Fruit in 1970's (Part 1) When I started picking fruit in 1970, I was amazed that my fellow workers looked just like the folks Steinbeck had described in The Grapes of Wrath.

I had thought these people had disappeared with the end of the Great Depression, but here they were: large families, often including half a dozen children, working together in the orchard and living in trailers, campers, or tents in the orchard camps. They seemed to be part of a vast migrating network of extended families who picked the nation's fruit. Who were these people? Where had they come from?

I learned that these workers were the sons and daughters of the Dustbowl migrants that Steinbeck had written about in his novel. Many of them had left the southern states with their parents in the 1930s and had come west, mainly to California, where work was plentiful picking cotton and peas, but also, later, to the Pacific Northwest.

By the time I met them, some forty years after the dust bowl migration, the Anglo workers who followed the harvest were so proficient that it seemed they had been "fruit tramps" forever, and were destined to remain Washington's primary work force. But by the 1980s, the agricultural work force had changed radically, and by the early 1990s, only a handful of "Okies" still followed the fruit run. There had been other groups of orchard workers before them, and there were to be others after them.

In the 1920's People Packed Their Own Fruit (Part 2) “In the 1920's, when I was a kid going to high school, quite often the school was shut down for harvest, and if they didn't, a lot of the kids who lived on orchards stayed home and helped the parents harvest. In those days, almost everybody packed their own fruit,” recalled Orondo orchardist Grady Auvil.

Native Americans: One of the Earliest Groups of Migratory Workers (Part 3) One of the earliest groups of migratory workers in Washington State, particularly in the northern part of the state, consisted of Native Americans. “The Canadian Indians came with their horses and tents and buggies and camped down here while they picked fruit,”

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said Len Wooten, who remembered the early days of orchard labor from his boyhood in Chelan, Washington.

Indians came from Canada to the Okanagon every year until the 1950s. Auvil, who worked as an orchard foreman in 1928, remembered that he was paid 75 cents an hour, while workers received 40 cents an hour. But all that changed, Auvil said, after the 1929 stock market crash. When the banks collapsed in 1932, wages plummeted: Auvil's wages went down to 25 cents an hour, while the workers received only 15 cents. "So, in order to support ourselves, we worked on a road job that summer and got 50 cents an hour," Auvil recalled.

Okies and Arkies Pick Crops During the Depression (Part 4) Wooten also remembered orchard work during the 1930s. "When the Great Depression hit, growers couldn't sell their fruit, and north central Washington was declared a disaster area. Growers were walking away from their orchards." Those who did keep their orchards, could hardly afford to pay their help. Wooten remembers being pulled out of high school and sent to work picking apples for three and a half cents a box.

Despite the hard times and the low wages, for once, there was no trouble finding plenty of hands at harvest time. There were thousands of people who were destitute and desperate for work. These were the "Okies" and "Arkies," the names attached to the Anglo migrants from the Great Plains, who came from the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, or Texas. A combination of factors, from mechanization to drought, dust storms, and a depressed economy, had driven these dispossessed families westward to seek employment.

...What did these migrants do after the harvest? "For four months, they follow the fruit and are tolerated. But, as soon as the trees and fields become bare and the harvest is done, they are told to move on," Blanchard wrote in 1940. "Local farm help is adequate to care for the fields during the next eight months. Communities, moreover, do not want these poverty-stricken wanderers settling down and becoming a drain upon already sorely taxed school, health, and welfare services."

Many Anglo migrants, as well as Mexican-American migrants from Texas who worked in the Yakima area, traveled south for the winter months, to work and live in California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, or other states. Yet others did settle successfully in Washington. By 1941 and 1942, while many migrants were leaving farmwork to work in the booming defense industry of World War II, others were just coming to the state to look for work in the orchards. "People came from Arkansas in '42, '43, '44," said Auvil, "and in three years, our school went from 25 to 150, so we had to build new schools."

WWII Labor Shortage Brings Braceros to Work in the Fields (Part 5) After the United States entered World War II, everybody went to work in the shipyards and defense plants. The demand for workers was so high that the government initiated a program to recruit braceros--Mexican nationals imported temporarily to work under contract in the fields.

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Although the labor shortage of the 1940s and 1950s was difficult for the growers, migrants tend to remember this period fondly. For workers who decided to follow the crops as a way of life, everything improved after 1941. As the Depression era's oversupply of labor faded from memory, wages rose and pickers were once more in demand. They would leave the orchards of the Northwest in the late autumn and travel to Arizona and California to pick two major crops: cotton and peas.

Many of the workers I met in the 1970s remembered this period with nostalgia. "I have some good memories from that time," said Dale Jones, who picked cotton in California as a child. "I remember when you could work anywhere. Wherever cotton grew, there was work. You could make good money at it."

Bad Experiences Remembered By Some (Part 6) But not everyone remembered the migratory life so fondly. "Cotton was my worst experience," said Gladys Wilson, whose family left Oklahoma in 1940 and picked cotton in Arkansas, Mississippi, and California. "It was always so dusty. One time, Ma made Jello, and it was all covered with dust... We had to travel from town to town. That's why us kids never got much education." Wilson was grateful when her parents started working in Washington State and decided to stay. "We settled down and didn't travel so much when we started picking apples and cherries. We could thin, prop, and prune in the same area."

1940's and 1950's: Search for Seasonal Labor (Part 7) Now that there was no longer a surplus of workers clamoring for jobs, growers had to become more resourceful in the 1940s and 1950s to meet their need for seasonal labor. The larger fruit companies regularly sent buses to Spokane, Seattle, or Portland during the harvest season to recruit workers, not only for picking, but also for packing, sorting, and grading the fruit. They tried to make the jobs enticing. "We had our own cooks and kitchens, and served lunches," said Wooten. Still, despite the busloads of people brought into the area, the labor problem was far from solved. Many of the transient workers were alcoholics who couldn't handle the demands of the work, and often the buses were almost as full on their return trips to the cities as they had been on their trips to orchard country.

This kind of recruitment continued into the 1960s. "When I came to this area in 1962, I was managing a big orchard which needed a lot of labor," remembered Ing, "and we chartered bus after bus out of Portland, and the Employment Security Service sometimes helped us round people up, and sometimes we'd send somebody down the night before and get them out of the restaurants.

Early in the morning, we'd load the bus, at four in the morning, and we also got some people out of Seattle. Yakima didn't do that because Yakima is a big enough town that it had a pretty sizeable casual labor group and a pretty good size Skid Row. In fact, we hauled some labor out of Yakima sometimes. People would say, 'Well, here comes another load of wine and flesh.' Of course, sometimes these people were in really bad

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shape and they couldn't work the first day, and they'd just stay in a cabin, and then some of them became excellent workers, they'd stay the whole season and were just great people."

Hippies Worked in Orchards(Part 8) Ing also remembered a nearly forgotten--and often maligned--source of labor: the hippies. They arrived at the orchards in psychedelic painted vans and pickups with cabins built on the back. "There were thousands and thousands of people that went on the road in this country as a kind of a protest against everything...and these kids were out on the road, and they did a lot of work. A lot of them were quite able-bodied young people, and they kind of liked to work next to the soil, and that kind of thing. We got a lot of labor from them...they contributed to the labor supply, and some people used them quite intensively." Mexicans Became a New Source of Labor (Part 9) By the late sixties, there were signs of a significant new labor source: Mexicans. Since the end of the bracero program, most workers from Mexico, and later from Central America, came to the United States illegally. "Yakima, Toppenish particularly, always had a Mexican-American population, people who had immigrated from Texas, and along the border, so there was a large group there who worked in orchards and hops, etcetera," Ing said.

"But the people we have now, the Mexicans that were mostly illegal, started coming about in the late sixties and early seventies...and I remember the transition. I was managing Mount Adams orchard, a big operation here locally. Well, we ran a cookhouse, and we fed the people, the Skid Row people that we brought in, we had as many as 250 people at a time, and anyway, there came a time then that we had a greater percentage of Mexicans, and so we quit running the cookhouse, and the people cooked for themselves, and there was a transition there all through the industry, where Mexicans became the principal labor force. It started in the late sixties, but it was probably 1980 before the labor force was mostly Mexicans."

Undocumented Latinos Replace Previous Workers (Part 10) For the Okies, the people I worked with throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, the influx of undocumented workers from Mexico and Central America spelled the end of a way of life. Suddenly, they couldn't find work in the orchards they had worked for years; they had been replaced. When they could find work, wages were low, families could no longer work together because of child labor laws, and it seemed that employers no longer valued them as much as they once had. Additionally, mechanization of many crops had made the life of a migrant far more difficult. Crops like cotton, peas, and beans no longer required hand labor; even fruit crops like juice oranges were being harvested mechanically. Pickers had become more reliant on fresh fruit crops, but now, with the deluge of workers from Mexico, there were few jobs available. Discouraged and disheartened, many of them left the orchards for

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other kinds of work. "Most of the Okies and Arkies gave up a long time ago," said Bill Wilson. "There are not many places a white family can work anymore."

But what was bad for the pickers--a surplus of labor--was good for the growers. The new workers--most of them, at first, males--were eager, and sometimes desperate for employment and money to send back to their families. And by the late sixties, more workers than ever were required to pick apples.

Research Changed Labor Practices (Part 11) Researchers had discovered that fruit wasn't being picked at the optimum time, and this, said Wooten, caused a change in labor practices. Once workers picked apples into November; now a grower had only about five days from the time the fruit was ripe to get it off the trees. This meant that a larger supply of pickers were needed for a shorter period of time. Anglo migrants grumbled, but workers from Mexico and Central America, who welcomed what work they could find, proved efficient and cooperative at a critical time. They became the workers of choice. "It would be very difficult if it weren't for them," Auvil said.

More Changes, More Workers Needed (Part 12) As the composition of the labor force was changing in the 1980s, so the requirements of labor were once again changing. With the varietals, there was more year-round work, blossom thinning, limb-tying, and color picking orchards several times. The demand for labor was higher than ever, and the employment opportunities began to extend beyond the basic four months. "We hire more people than we ever did now," said Auvil. "We hire as many as we possibly can year-round. A good share of our people work most of the time, anywhere from eight to ten months. You do a better job growing fruit if you have a plentiful supply of good labor." As different varieties of apples extended the harvest season and required more hand labor, more workers have been encouraged to settle permanently in orchard areas. Since many foreign workers have been granted temporary or permanent residence status under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, male workers who formerly came north alone began to bring their families, and Latino workers became a more stable force in Washington State's orchards. Like the Anglo migrants before them, they began to establish themselves in the tree fruit industry. "Many orchard workers can do pretty good," said Auvil. "These people all have families, good cars, and a good living. A lot of Mexican orchard workers are doing very well, and some of them are going into business for themselves, the same as did the people from Arkansas."

Many Things Had Changed Since the 1920's (Part 13) In 1992, picking cherries next to a family from Mexico, I realized how much things had changed. The people I worked near now were no longer from Arkansas and Oklahoma, and the children under16 were no longer allowed to help their families pick fruit. Instead of migrating to California, Arizona, or Florida to pick fruit in the winter, the family that

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worked next to me returned to Mexico each winter to visit their relatives. They were able to collect unemployment during periods without work --an advantage most Okie migrants never experienced. And they were more settled than most of the people I used to work with: this family had bought a mobile home in East Wenatchee, and the father found enough work in the area to keep him employed for eight months of the year. Some Things Were Still the Same (Part 14) But in other ways, things had stayed the same. Like the workers I talked to 20 years before, the Latino workers liked the outdoor work and the ability to be near their families. Too, they preferred the piece-rate system of payment that rewarded them for working hard, and the seasonal work that provided variety.

California 1941

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Migrant Workers Today

Mexican Migrant Workers Today

* FACT More than a million agricultural workers migrated to the United States in the early twentieth century. The majority of these people found work on small family farms in California; the owners of these farms welcomed cheap labor. * FACT When World War II (1939) started a large number of jobs opened up. This meant that the people who usually worked as migrant farm workers were called to do other factory jobs such as making parachutes, artillery, airplanes and so on, and new migrant workers were called in. * FACT Most migrant workers in California today are of Mexican descent. This was not always the case. Originally they came from East and West Europe, China, Japan, Korea and Latin America, along with Mexico. The shift to Mexican predominance happened because farmers were scared of racial conflict between the immigrating workers and the "natives" of California. Farmers minimized this by telling Californians that the Mexican workers would return to Mexico following picking season. But this broken promise enabled the growth of systematic oppression towards the incoming Mexicans. * FACT Today there are thousands of Mexican migrant workers in California, Texas and New Mexico. They moved here for the same reasons most of our ancestors did: to live better lives with more opportunities. Some are legal citizens of this country and some are not. The recent controversy has been surrounding the illegal workers in this country.

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Migrant Worker Today

* FACT Many of these workers do jobs that other Americans do not want to do. They work long hours in construction, transport and farming and earn very little money. Our economy depends on their hard work. The majority of the fruit and vegetables we eat today are picked by these workers!

Immigration Reform Protesters

* FACT In May 2006 President Bush announced reforms to tackle the issue of illegal immigrants. He said he would add 6,000 extra patrol officers along the US-Mexico border. In 2006 there were around 11.5 illegal immigrants in the country. 75% were born in Latin America. Many had entered via the southern US border.

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* FACT The President felt that there were too many illegal immigrants in the country. Indeed, the Supreme Court ruled that a Mexican resident who had lived illegally in the U.S. for the last twenty years, may not seek legal status and may have to be deported to Mexico.

Immigration Reform Protesters

* FACT But the opposition argued that the numbers didn't add up. The U.S. takes in only 2% of the world's total immigration population. Of that 75% have legal status in this country. Of the 25% remaining, half are thought to have entered legally on a visa but overstayed the visa date, and the small amount of others entered illegally. As they have no legal status, however, they are not entitled to local, state and federal benefits and therefore do not drain central resources.

Immigration Reform Protesters

* QUESTIONS a) What jobs do migrant workers do today? b) What is a visa? c) In which states do the majority of migrant workers live? d) Research your family ancestry. Do you know why your ancestors moved to the

U.S? Ask elder members of your family, look in the local library and online!

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Social Aggression & the American Dream in Of Mice & Men

For many victims of the Depression, the struggles of day-to-day life were almost too much to bear. They needed something larger to turn to for inspiration. Many of these Americans turned their hopes and faith towards The American Dream. The American Dream: the faith or belief that the United States holds unlimited opportunity for anyone, regardless of background, race, religion, or economic status. The American Dream suggests that anyone who is born in or comes to the United States has a chance to achieve high levels of prosperity and happiness. Each character in Of Mice and Men is driven by a very specific objective: something they want, need or desire; something they work towards or strive for. These objectives are responsible for the actions of the character. Everything a character does within the play can be traced back to his or her objective. In Of Mice and Men, many of these objectives are directly connected to The American Dream. George’s objective is to buy a house where he and Lennie can “live on the fat of the land.” He and Lennie travel together and plan to save their money in order to buy the “little place with ten acres” that George has heard is available. George knows that owning that land would give Lennie and him some stability and security. In Act I Scene II, he talks about the benefits of working on their own land: “Nobody could can us in the middle of a job…And when we put in a crop, why we’d be there to take that crop up. We’d know what come of our planting…And it’d be our own. And nobody could can us. If we don’t like a guy, we can say: ‘get to hell out,’ and by God he’s got to do it.”

John Malkovich as Lennie & Gary Sinise as George

in the 1992 movie Of Mice & Men

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Lennie has an even more focused objective. He wants to live with George and to have his very own rabbits he can tend to and pet and take care of. In Act III Scene I, Lennie dreams about the place they’re going to own, the work he’s going to do, and the life he and George are going to leave behind: “We gonna have a little place an’ raspberry bushes…Gonna take a sack an’ fill it up with alfalfa an’…We gonna get outta here purty soon. This ain’t no nice place…We gonna go way…far away from here…We gonna have a house and a garden, an’ a place for alfalfa. And I take a sack and get it all full of alfalfa, and then I take it to the rabbits.” Candy joins in on the excitement after overhearing George’s plan to get “a little place with a couple of acres.” Candy admits that he too wants “a little place” of his own, and is willing to do whatever he can to get it. He offers his life savings to George and Lennie if they will let him join them at the new house. In Act II Scene I, Candy expresses how willing he is to be a part of George and Lennie’s dream: “S’pose I went in with you guys? That’s three hundred and forty bucks I’d put in. I ain’t much good, but I could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some…I’d make a will. Leave my share to you guys in case I kicked off. I ain’t got no relations nor nothing…Maybe if I give you guys my money, you’ll let me hoe in the garden, even when I ain’t no good at it. And I’ll wash dishes and little chicken stuff like that. But hell, I’ll be on our own place. I’ll be let to work on our own place.”

Ray Walston as Candy in the 1992 movie Of Mice & Men

FAST FACT: Achieving The American Dream is often and traditionally symbolized by owning one’s own home.

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Curley’s Wife’s objective is to leave her life far behind and move to Hollywood, where she plans to become a motion picture star. She is married to a man she doesn’t love and stuck on a farm with no one to talk to or anything to do. In Act III Scene I, she dreams of the life she believes she could have had: “I ain’t meant to live like this. I come from Salinas. Well, a show come through an’ I talked to a guy that was in it. He says I could go with the show…’Nother time I met a guy an’ he was in pitchers. Went out to the Riverside Dance Palace with him. He says I was a natural. Soon’s he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write me about it. I never got that letter…I’ll go in the night an’ thumb a ride to Hollywood…Gonna get in the movies an’ have nice clothes…An’ I’ll set in them big hotels and they’ll take pitchers of me…an’ it won’t cost me nothing ‘cause I’m in the pitcher.”

Sherilyn Fenn as Curley’s Wife in the 1992 movie Of Mice & Men

FAST FACT: Hollywood -- the Los Angeles, California neighborhood that is home to the American motion picture industry -- has always

offered a shining vision of the kind of quick and highly visible success often associated with The American Dream.

Social Aggression: actions and behaviors directed at damaging another’s self-esteem, social status, or both. Social Aggression can take the form of facial expressions (including the rolling of eyes and other looks of disgust), gossip and the spreading of rumors, bullying, verbal and/or non-verbal exclusion, or the manipulation of friendships and other relationships. One of the most important causes of social aggression in Of Mice and Men is The Great Depression. During the Depression, employment opportunities were increasingly rare, so

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workers were forced to travel from town to town in search of the next job. They were unable to start families and settle down. Workers who did get married struggled to keep their families together. Saving enough money to buy a home of one’s own was virtually impossible on a migrant worker’s salary. Racial segregation was still a widespread policy, and the economic collapse only heightened racial tensions. The characters in Of Mice and Men are coping with the unique challenge of The Great Depression. They have been victims of social change, economic collapse, and environmental catastrophe. They are alienated from society. They are cut off from their roots, from larger cities and from the mainstream of society. They do however get to make the rules of their own little corner. They decide who gets to play horseshoes. They decide who gets to join them in town on the weekends. They can choose to exclude any member of their portion of society who does not fit the standards they have set. George does not let Lennie go into town with the rest of the guys. The farmers prohibit Crooks from entering their bunkhouse. Curley’s Wife isn’t allowed to stay anywhere around the working men. Through these small acts of exclusion, the workers assert their power over others, however small and insignificant those powers may be. Curley is a bully to everyone on the farm. He intimidates the workers with the threat of violence. As one of the bosses on the farm, Curley feels a need to establish his dominance over the workers, especially those workers who are physically larger than him. He sees those workers as potential threats to his authority. In Act II Scene I, George warns Lennie about Curley’s attitude: “You gonna have trouble with that Curley guy. I seen that kind before. You know what he’s doin’. He’s kinda feelin’ you out. He figures he’s got you scared. And he’s gonna take a sock at you, first chance he gets.”

Casey Siemaszko as Curley in the 1992 movie Of Mice & Men

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In Act I Scene II, Candy gives some other possible reasons why Curley is such a bully: “Well…tell you what, Curley’s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He’s all time pickin’ scraps with big guys. Kinda like he’s mad at ‘em because he ain’t a big guy. You seen little guys like that, ain’t you—always scrappy?” Candy suggests that Curley’s small size has made him want to challenge larger men. Curley wants to make taller and bigger men fear him so he can maintain control over them, and he attempts to do that by cutting down their self-esteem and social status. Later in the same scene, Candy also suggests that Curley’s marriage is a possible cause of his anger and aggression: “Seems like Curley’s worse’n ever since he got married. Like he’s settin’ on a ant-hill an’ a big red ant come up an’ nipped ‘im on the turnip. Just feels so goddamn miserable he’ll strike at anything that moves.”

FAST FACT: The causes of social aggression are often different than the victim of social aggression. People often take their anger or frustration with one area of their life out on someone who has

done nothing to deserve it. Another target of Curley’s aggression is his wife. Curley follows her around the farm and orders her away from the other men if he ever catches her. He doesn’t allow her to find anyone to speak to or spend time with. Curley’s wife receives similarly harsh treatment from the farm workers. The men on the farm regard her as a “tart,” claiming she has no business being around them since she is a married woman. The men believe that she is nothing but trouble. In Act I Scene II, Candy spreads rumors of her wandering eye: “Well, I seen her give Slim the eye. Curley never seen it. An I seen her give a skinner named Carlson the eye…Well, I think Curley’s married himself a tart…Well, you look her over mister. You see if she ain’t a tart!” Later in the same scene, George shares his first impressions after meeting her: “Jesus, what a tramp! So that’s what Curley picks for a wife. God Almighty, did you smell that stink she’s got on? I can still smell her. Don’t have to see her to know she’s around…I seen ‘em poison before, but I ain’t never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her.”

FAST FACT: Social aggression against women can often take the form of gossip and innuendo about their sexuality.

Both men and women are commonly guilty of this type of hurtful talk.

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Crooks, the black farm hand, is a victim of a more widespread form of social aggression. Because of the color of his skin, he is excluded from the bunkhouse. He is not allowed to be a part of the larger community of farm workers. In Act II Scene II, Crooks talks about the effect this exclusion has had on him: “S’pose you couldn’t go in the bunkhouse and play rummy, ‘cause you was black. How would you like that? S’pose you had to set out here and read books. Sure, you could play horseshoes until it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain’t no good. A guy needs somebody…to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who it is as long as he’s with you. I tell you a guy gets too lonely, he gets sick.”

Joe Morton as Crooks in the 1992 movie Of Mice & Men

Crooks also commits acts of social aggression. When Lennie tells Crooks about the house that he and George are planning to buy, Crooks tells Lennie that he is nuts for even imagining the possibility. Crooks gives Lennie a hard time about traveling with George, and asks Lennie what he would do if George never came back for him. In Act II Scene II, Crooks tries to dash Lennie’s dream of having that little piece of land: “You’re nuts. I seen hundreds of men come by on the road and on the ranches, bundles on their back and that same damn thing in their head. Hundreds of ‘em. They come and they quit and they go on. An every damn one of ‘em is got a little piece of land in his head. And never a goddamn one of ‘em gets it. Jus’ like heaven. Everybody wants a little piece of land. Nobody never gets to heaven. And nobody gets no land.”

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EXERCISES

1. The American Dream: Research the ways in which The American Dream has changed over the years for different groups of Americans. These links can help you get started: http://www.americansc.org.uk/Online/American_Dream.htm http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/sermons/650704_The_American_Dream.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4265454.stm

a. In what ways has The American Dream changed since Of Mice & Men? What social and economic factors have caused those changes?

b. How does The American Dream differ for different groups of Americans? c. How did Martin Luther King, Jr. interpret The American Dream? Is his

interpretation related to the hopes and dreams of the characters in Of Mice & Men?

d. Are there any characters from Of Mice & Men who you believe are capable of going on to achieve The American Dream? Why or why not? Provide examples from the text to support your answer.

e. Do all citizens of the United States have equal opportunity to achieve The American Dream today? What social and economic factors support your argument? Do Americans today have greater access to The American Dream than Americans during the Depression?

2. Social Aggression:

a. What acts of social aggression have you seen in your school and community? b. What role did the school or community environment play in those acts of

aggression? What role did economic factors play? What role did social pressure play? Were there other factors that somehow impacted the situation?

c. List three major causes of social aggression in your life. Are any of these causes similar to the causes of social aggression in Of Mice & Men?

d. What are some ways people attempt to establish dominance and authority over you in your everyday life?

e. Has anyone ever taken out their anger with something else out on you? Write a letter to someone who has done this to you. Explain how his or her actions made you feel. Suggest some other ways this person might deal with his or her anger.

f. Have you ever taken your anger out on someone who is not responsible for it? Write a letter to someone you have done this to. Explain why you might have done this.

g. What are some alternatives to social aggression? Are there ways to address and respond to the causes of social aggression without attempting to damage someone else’s self-esteem or social status?

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3. Economics: Data:

o In Of Mice and Men George could buy a little house with a small bit of land for $600. He says, “ain’t enough land so we’d have to work too hard. Mebbe six, seven hours a day.”

o Today the average price for a home in California is $548,000. o The average price for a home in the United States is $264,000.

Calculate: a. What is the percentage of increase to own a home in the United States from 1937

to the present day? b. What is the percentage of increase to own a home in California from 1937 to the

present day? Data:

o In Of Mice and Men George says a “guy can make a couple of dollars a day” at the American River. In 1937 this was a good salary.

o George also says, “if me and Lennie work a month and don’t spend nothing at all, we’ll have a hundred bucks.”

o The current (2006) federal minimum wage is $5.15 and has not been increased since 1997.

Calculate: a. If you had a 40 hr./week job that paid minimum wage, and “work a month and

don’t spend nothing at all” how much would you be able to save? b. Deduct the following withholding taxes from the same monthly salary: 7.65%

medicare & social security, 10% federal, 3% state, 2% city and 3% unemployment tax. What is your monthly salary after withholding?

c. Deduct the following living expenses from the same monthly salary after withholding taxes: $500 rent, $32 electricity, $80 telephone, $20 gas, $320 groceries.

d. Are you able to save any money after withholding taxes and living expenses are deducted from the minimum wage salary?

Compare: a. Look at the calculations from present day minimum wage salary and living

expenses and compare them with what George says about saving money and buying a house.

b. What conclusion can you draw from this comparison? What does this say about the present day economy?

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Activity Sheet Character Objective

Characters in movies, plays, books, and stories have a basic similarity. They all have OBJECTIVES.

An objective is: SOMETHING A CHARACTER WANTS, NEEDS OR DESIRES throughout the story. They usually spend the entire time

pursuing this objective.

Each character in Of Mice & Men has an OBJECTIVE as well. What is the primary desire of the following characters?

George: Lennie: Candy: The Boss: Curley: Curley’s Wife: Slim: Crooks:

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Activity Sheet Theme

Every play has a THEME. Every book and movie does, too. Theme: the main idea or ethical precept of the play.

Theme is the same as topic, subject matter, premise or thesis.

Of Mice & Men focuses on the theme of FRIENDSHIP/PROTECTION. List three examples of how the theme of friendship/protection is illustrated

in the plot of Of Mice & Men. Be very specific.

1. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Do these examples connect to the objectives of the characters?

Ti

WLi

Think about your favorite movie or book. Answer the following questions:

tle: __________________________________________________________

hat is the theme: _______________________________________________ st examples of how the theme is illustrated: 1. ___________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Discussion question: What would happen if a story had no theme?

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Activity Sheet A Good Plot

Plot: what happens in a play; the story/stories being told as revealed by what

the characters say about themselves or each other; the action of the play.

Inciting incident: the laof actio

Rising action: the seqClimax: the action that

anFalling action: the a

What is t______________________________________________________

List three events in O1. __________________________________2. __________________________________3. __________________________________

Wha______________________________________________________

What is______________________________________________________

A good plot… A good plot… A good plot… A good plot…

Structure of a Play Script unching pad of the play; the action or short sequence

ns that constitutes the point of attack. uence of actions and events that leads to the climax. resolves the conflict; the central dramatic question is swered; comes late in the play. cceptance of the situation derived from the climax;

the resolution.

he Inciting Incident in Of Mice & Men? ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ f Mice & Men that can be considered Rising Action. ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ t is the Climax in Of Mice & Men?

___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ the Falling Action in Of Mice & Men? ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________

keeps you guessing. surprises you. will have multiple themes. builds on a strong central conflict.

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Activity Sheet The American Dream

O O Y A O Y Y Y C

The American Dream is the idea that anyone from any background, race, religion, creedor economic standing can be born in or come to the United States and make it all the way

to the top.

Bill Gates dropped out of college to write software because he had an idea that one day every home would have a personal computer. Now he is one of the richest and most powerful men on the planet. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest

philanthropic organization in the world.

Oprah Winfrey started life on a poor farm, and eventually grew to be one of the best known and most respected journalists in the country, as well as being an actress and

running her own company.

All of the characters in Of Mice & Men are after their own American Dream. Can you think of that dream is for each character?

Ask the following people what their American Dream is, and write it in the space provided.

ne of your Parents: ____________________________________________

ne of your Grandparents: _______________________________________

our Aunt or Uncle: ____________________________________________

Neighbor: __________________________________________________

ne of Your Teachers: __________________________________________

our Sibling: _________________________________________________

our Best Friend: ______________________________________________

ou: ________________________________________________________

ompare the answers you received. How are they different? How are they the same? Why do you think they vary?

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Activity Sheet Who Makes the Show?

It takes a lot of people to put together a theatrical production. It is very similar to the many people needed to put on a sporting event, like a

basketball game. Below are two lists of only some of the people who are integral parts to either a theatrical production or to keeping a basketball team in working order. Using the internet and what you learned from your visit to

The Cleveland Play House, write a brief description of each person’s responsibilities. Then, draw a line matching the person in column A

(theatrical production) to column B (basketball team).

A-Production Team B-Basketball Team

1. Director:_______________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

1. Fans:_________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

2. Stage Manager:_________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

2. Owner:________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

3. Actor:_________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

3. Coach:________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

4. Producer:______________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

4. Players:_______________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

5.Audience:______________ _______________________ _______________________ _______________________

5. Assistant Coach:_________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

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Writing Activity Be a Theatre Critic

A very strong element in the success or failure of a new production is the Theatre Critic. Use the following outline to write a review of the Cleveland Play House’s

production of My Fair Lady.

Paragraph 1: ABOUT THE PLAY 1. What was the title or the play? 2. Who wrote the play? 3. Which theatre company produced it? 4. What was your overall reaction to the play? 5. Give a brief synopsis of the plot of the play. Paragraph 2: 1. What aspects of the production (i.e. sets, costumes, lights, sound, acting), were similar to how you envisioned them? What aspects were different? What aspects would you like to have changed and why? 2. What scenes in the play did you find most/least interesting, entertaining, and enjoyable? What about these scenes made you like or dislike them so much? 3. Did the production move too slowly, quickly, or at the right speed? Paragraph 3: ABOUT THE CHARACTERS/ PERFORMERS 1. Did any characters touch you personally? Who was your favorite? 2. Were the character's motivations clear? In other words, could you understand what each character wanted? 3. Which actor do you think gave the best performance? What did this actor do that made you think s/he gave the best performance? 4. How did the way the actors use their bodies onstage enhance their performances? Paragraph 4: ABOUT THE SET 1. Did the set provide the right environment/atmosphere for the production? If so, how? If not, why not? 2. Did the set reflect the themes and style of the play? 3. Were there any interesting details in the set? If so, what? Paragraph 5: ABOUT THE LIGHTING AND THE SOUND 1. Did the lighting establish the right mood and atmosphere for the production? If so, how? If not, why not? 2. Did the music/sound add to the mood and atmosphere of the production or take away from it? How? Paragraph 6: ABOUT THE COSTUMES 1. Were the costumes appropriate for the mood and style of the production? If so, why? If not, why not? 2. Did any of the costumes reflect a character's personality or wealth? What clues did the costumes give about the characters? Paragraph 7: CONCLUSION Would you recommend this production to someone? If so, to whom? If not, why not?

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Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck

Clinging to each other for support during one of the most

challenging times in our nation’s history, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie dream, as drifters will, of a place to call their

own. But after they come to work on a ranch in California their hopes, like “the best laid schemes o’mice and men,” begin to go

awry. The New York Times: “A thriller…a gripping tale!” One of the great classics of both literature and drama in American history.

Social Studies Focus: The Depression, Economics and History The Economics of The Great Depression

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STANDARD: History Students use materials drawn from the diversity of human experience to analyze and interpret significant events, patterns and themes in the history of Ohio, the United States and the world. By the end of the 11-12 program students will: Benchmark A. Explain patterns of historical continuity and change by challenging arguments of historical inevitability. Benchmark B. Use historical interpretations to explain current issues. STANDARD: Economics: Students use economic reasoning and knowledge of major economic concepts, issues and systems in order to make informed choices as producers, consumers, savers, investors, workers and citizens in an interdependent world. By the end of the 9-10 program students will: Benchmark A. Compare how different economic systems answer the fundamental economic questions of what goods and services to produce, how to produce them and who will consume them. Benchmark B. Explain how the U.S. government provides services, redistributes income, regulates economic activity, and promotes economic growth and stability. By the end of the 11-12 program students will: Benchmark A. Analyze how scarcity of productive resources affects supply, demand, inflation and economic choices. Benchmark B. Identify factors which inhibit or spur economic growth and cause expansions or recessions. Benchmark C. Explain how voluntary worldwide trade, specialization and interdependence among countries affect standards of living and economic growth. Benchmark D. Analyze the role of fiscal and regulatory policies in a mixed economy. Benchmark E. Explain the use of a budget in making personal economic decisions and planning for the future. STANDARD: People in SocietiesStudents use knowledge of perspectives, practices and products of cultural, ethnic and social groups to analyze the impact of their commonality and diversity within local, national, regional and global settings. By the end of the 9-10 program students will: Benchmark A. Analyze the influence of different cultural perspectives on the actions of groups. Benchmark B. Analyze the consequences of oppression, discrimination and conflict between cultures. Benchmark C. Analyze the ways that contact between people of different cultures results in exchanges of cultural practices. By the end of the 11-12 program students will: Benchmark A. Analyze how issues may be viewed differently by various cultural groups. Benchmark B. Identify the causes of political, economic and social oppression and analyze ways individuals, organizations and countries respond to resulting conflicts. Benchmark C. Explain the role of diverse cultural institutions in shaping American society.

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Answers to: Activity Sheet

Character Objective

Variations of these answers might come up in classroom discussion. Use these as a guide, not a definitive answer.

George: wants a “little house and a couple of acres.” Lennie: wants a vegetable patch and rabbits. Candy: wants “a little place”. The Boss: wants productivity. Curley: wants authority. Curley’s Wife: wants to be in the movies. Slim: wants to work for himself. Crooks: wants someone to be with him to keep him from getting lonely.

Answers to: Activity Sheet A Good Plot

Variations of these answers might come up in classroom discussion. Use these as a guide, not a definitive answer.

Inciting Incident: George and Lennie are run out of town (Weed). Rising Action:

1. George warns Lennie about eyeing Curley’s Wife. 2. George tells Slim why he and Lennie were run out of Weed. 3. Curley picks a fight with Lennie. 4. Lennie breaks Curley’s hand. 5. Curley’s wife flirts with Lennie. 6. George goes to strike Curley’s Wife, but stops himself when he

realizes the Boss is watching. Climax: Lennie kills Curley’s Wife. Falling Action: George shoots Lennie.

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Theatre Terms Beginner Crossword Puzzle

U1

C2

O S T U M E S A3

N A U

D4

E S I G N E R D

E T B5

I

R C6

H A R A C T E R

S C

T N7

S8

C9

K O

U A E U R10

S N

D11

I R E C T O R E P12

L O T

Y R T H L A

A S13

T A G E M A N A G E R

T C I A Y E

P14

R O P R15

U N C R E W

R I C S R

P A A I

T L L G

L H

A16

C T O R

I

5

10

W16

S19

T

A

G

E

R

I

G

H

T

U33

Theatre Terms Intermediate Crossword Puzzle

C1

C2

H R3

I S I N G A4

C T I O N

D O I U

I R P6

L O T P7

D

A C8

E R I L I

L O O O C9

H A R A C T E R

O F F S T A G E P Y I B11

G T R W O R

U U A R12

U N C13

R E W

E M P I U A

U14

E H D15

E S I G N E R K

I N G S E O H T A

D R W S17

E T A18

D L I B

C E N E N T I E

R C20

S21

T A G E M A N A G E R

S A T G C

T C22

B23

A C24

K S T A G E A25

C T O R

U U U T G L L

D26

I R E C T O R R27

E H E A R S28

A L

Y T F C

P29

R O T A G O N I S T R

I C30

L I M A X

A31

N T A G O N I S T P

C N32

A R R A T O R

P S T A G E

43

Theatre Terms Advanced Crossword Puzzle

C1

A S2

T C3

U R4

T A I N C A L L

C W5

U A6

A7

E I N S8

T9

A G E R10

I G H T P11

L O T

T12

O N Y N C R E C13

T14

R

M I M15

G R A H T16

O H C17

R I T I C18

O C19

R O S S O V E R G E H M E S H

S A V W E A R I M E O

P R E D R A20

U C21

O M E D Y R

H T M S22

C R I P23

T Y S R S R E

E I E T R D24

I A L E C T E A25

U D26

I T I O N

R27

I S I N G A C T I O N L N S L A G

E T T G T A T I N R

D28

C29

U E A P30

B31

A C32

K S T A G E C A33

A

I O D34

E S I G N E R S O T G F E N P

A A I O O U35

P S T A G E C T H

L C36

U R T A I N S T G B37

R E A K A L E G

B38

O O T H E I C39

O S T U M E S P G R

G C S E M T40

R A N S L A T I O N

U M41

O T I V A42

T I O N M43

E A

E O I C I E S I I

N O T U L H S44

T A45

G E B U S I N E S S

O N M O O T C T

L S46

O U47

N D B O A R D O P E R A T O R D48

O N R R M G U I

C49

G D N50

C51

H A R A C T E R S A

L U E A H M N M T O52

L

D53

I R E C54

T O R R A55

D A P T A T I O N B O

M A S R G N C J G C56

S57

T A G E L E F T A A58

S59

I D E A S60

C E N E U A

E X L U T U R G C E L

T A61

D O B E C62

A S T I N G C A L L

D P63

L A Y W R I G H T A64

C T O R I O B

L R E V A A

S65

O L I L O Q U Y X O66

F F S T A G E C C

B P D67

O W N S T A G E H K

N

44