Tell us about the rabbits, George... OF MICE AND MEN Starts Thursday at Players

I'm afraid a variety of viruses descended upon my household just about New Year's Eve and as a result, I have neglected this blog. In my absence, Downton Abbey and The Good Wife have returned, the goofy Galavant has bowed, and the Golden Globes have globbed themselves all over our televisions.

But there's still a lot of January left and lots to look in on!

And first up is Of Mice and Men, the classic John Steinbeck story adapted by Steinbeck himself for the stage. The play bowed in San Francisco, closer to Steinbeck's home turf, first, moving to Broadway by November, 1937, in a production directed by George S. Kaufman for the Music Box Theatre. Broderick Crawford and Wallace Ford starred as Lennie and George, the pair of itinerant workers who form the nucleus of the story. Veteran actor Will Geer, who would go on to television fame as Grandpa Walton, played Slim, the mule-team driver and leader among the men on the ranch, while Leigh Whipper, the first African-American actor to join Actors Equity and one of the founders of the Negro Actors Guild of America, played Crooks, the one black worker among them.

Lon Chaney Jr. took over the role of Lennie when the play moved to Los Angeles, and he also appeared in the 1939 film version, with Burgess Meredith now playing George. Chaney went on from there to a parade of movie monsters like Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, while Meredith became the Penguin in the purple top hat on TV, Rocky's crusty old coach on film, and the man with the thick glasses in one of the most famous Twilight Zone episodes ever. Leigh Whipper was the sole actor from the Broadway production to reprise his role on film.

Other actors of note who have played Lennie, the oversized "bindlestiff" -- what we used to call a hobo when it came time to pick Halloween costumes -- who has limited mental capacity, great physical strength, and a fondness for anything soft, include James Earl Jones, John Malkovich, Chris O'Dowd and Randy Quaid, while James Franco, George Segal and Gary Sinise have portrayed George, the smaller, smarter half of the duo.

For the Community Players production opening January 15 with a special Pay What You Can preview, Penny Wilson directs Dave Krostal as George and Rick Clemmons as Lennie. Krostal is well-known to local audiences from performances in shows as different as Spamalot, Time Stands Still and A Tuna Christmas, while Clemmons is a stand-up comedian making his dramatic debut as Lennie.

The supporting cast includes Nicole Aune, Joe Culpepper, George Freeman, Todd Mangruem, Spencer Powell, Thom Rakestraw, Joe Strupek and Paul Vellella.

For more information, including a link to buy tickets, click here for the show's Facebook page or here for the web page. Performances begin on the 15th and run through the 25th at Community Players Theatre on Robinhood Lane in Bloomington.

Casting News, Part One: OF MICE AND MEN at Community Players

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men was published as a novella in 1937, but Steinbeck already had plans to put it on stage. By November, 1937, Steinbeck's own adaptation of his novel was playing at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway, with a cast that included Broderick Crawford and Wallace Ford as Lennie and George, a troubled pair of migrant ranch hands trying to eke out an existence in California during the Great Depression. Also in the cast -- Will Geer, Grandpa Walton himself. He played Slim, a mule-team driver and a leader in the ranch hierarchy. And Leigh Whipper, the first African-American member of Actors Equity, appeared as Crooks.

By 1939, Of Mice and Men was a movie, directed by Lewis Milestone for Hal Roach Studios, but without either Crawford or Ford. Whipper was the only member of the Broadway cast to appear in the film. A newcomer named Burgess Meredith played George, the smarter, smaller half of the pair, while Lon Chaney, Jr., who went on to play the Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolf Man, took the role of Lennie, George's mentally challenged partner.

The play came back into the spotlight in 1974, in a Broadway production with James Earl Jones as Lennie, and in 1980 in Chicago, in a Steppenwolf production directed by Terry Kinney, with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich as George and Lennie. Sinise later directed Malkovich in a film version, too. Steinbeck's play was revived on Broadway earlier this year, with James Franco and Irish actor Chris O'Dowd.

Steinbeck's story is mostly a character study, an examination of the relationship between Lennie and George, whose lives are so inextricably linked. Lennie is large in stature, but his size and strength are at odds with his fondness for petting and holding soft things, including rabbits and puppies. As they travel from place to place, always one step ahead of trouble, George and Lennie dream of owning their own ranch instead of always scraping by working for other people. But, in the end, their conflicts with the sadistic son of their ranch boss and his flirtatious wife put everything in jeopardy.

Of Mice and Men is on the schedule for Community Players in January, with performances from January 16 to 25, 2015. Penny Wilson will direct Dave Krostal, who appeared in various roles in Spamalot with Players and as a photographer grappling with ethical and relationship problems in Time Stands Still at Heartland, as George, and Rick Clemmons, well-known locally as a stand-up comedian, as Lennie.

Spencer Powell will play Curley, the "handy" man who takes an instant dislike to Lennie, with Nicole Aune as his wife, Mae. Also in the cast are George Freeman as Curley's father, the boss of the place; Joe Culpepper as Candy, an aging ranch hand; Paul Vellella as "princely" Slim; Joe Strupek as Carlson; and Thom Rakestraw as Whit. No one has been announced yet for Crooks.

For more information or to order tickets, visit the Community Players website here.