The show will run from Friday, March 4 through Sunday, March 20. Show times on Fridays and Saturdays will be at 7:30 p.m. and on Sundays at 2 p.m. at Park Ballroom, 1232 Park St. For a special treat, Anthony has arranged for Susan Shillinglaw, the director of the National Steinbeck Museum in Salinas,to speak for 30 minutes before the shows on Saturday, March 5 and Sunday, March 6.

Shillinglaw has been a scholar of Steinbeck's work for the past 29 years. She often speaks on the impact of his writings.

"Eighty years after the publication of 'Of Mice and Men,' John Steinbeck's remarkable power to move and shake us remains strikingly relevant today," Wolf said. "His profound understanding of the human spirit -- its admirable strengths and its inevitable weaknesses -- is both inspiring and distressing."

Anthony said that the story is set on the Central Coast during the Great Depression and follows two migrant workers: George, who is strong and wise, and Lennie, who is strong, but simple-minded. They dream together of owning their own piece of land. However, George has to decide whether to protect his friend or to keep his chance to achieve his dream when Lennie gets into trouble.

"This is my first time directing Steinbeck. My first experience with Steinbeck came when, at 14 years old, I was cast as Rose of Sharon in The Grapes of Wrath,'" Wolf said. "It was the first time I worked with director Billy Houck who was pretty formative to my career in the theatre, so it's an experience I remember fondly. The opportunity to come full circle and direct an American icon like Steinbeck's 1937 Novel. The play debuted on Broadway on Nov. 23, 1937 at Music Box Theatre.

"It's such a brillant play - most of us are familiar with the novella John Steinbeck wrote," Anthony said.

The original cast of the play were Wallace Ford as George Milton, Brodcrick Crawford as Lennie Small, John F. Hamilton as Candy, Will Geer as Slim, Sam Byrd as Curley; Claire Luce as Curicy's wife, Leigh Whipper as Crooks, Charles Slattery as Carlson, Walter Baldwin as Whit and Thomas Findlay as The Boss. James Earl Jones played Lennie Small in the 1974 Broadway revival at Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

Tickets for this play arc $25 each and include cheese and snacks with wine available for purchase. For the first time, tickets will be offered to high school students for $5 with student ID "in order to encourage a multi-generational audience," Anthony said, adding that the novel "Of Mice and Men" is part of the ninth-grade curriculum at Paso Robles High School and they are currently reading the book in class. "It's a really great opportunity for them to see a professionally trained [theater companyj."

Additionally, for every eight students that purchase tickets, a teacher will get a free ticket with teacher ID. "We feel it's a great time to collaborate with them," Anthony said.

"We are always looking for ways to give back to the community; and this opportunityto give students a chance to see a live performance of a great work of literature seems like a perfect fit," Anthony said. "After all, the story takes place at the Salinas River, which runs through their towns."

Anthony said one thing she's excited about is to bring a play that tells a story that is still -- "unfortunately" -- relevant today.

"I'm truly excited to be working with my incredible cast and production team," Woff said. "Theater is a collaborative art form and the parts really make the whole here. We have this opportunity to celebrate a play that was written in California, about Californians suffering through an historic drought, economic turmoil and social isolation. It hits close to home - literally and figuratively.

... 'Of Mice and Men' endures because it is many things: a hymn to friendship and brotherhood, an indictment of prejudice, an ode to the dispossessed, a protest against poverty, a cry for help for the ostracized, and a defense of dreams."