For Immediate Release
September 30, 2008

MANASSAS –Vpstart Crow Announces Auditions for Charles Dickens', A Christmas Carol.

This season’s holiday tradition, the 10th annual, will be directed by Cory Eskridge Okouchi.

This is Mr. Okouchi’s 5th season as a member of the annual production, following up last season’s exceptional production as co-director and Ebeneezer Scrooge. “I’m very proud to be able to bring this special holiday story to life once again for the community. I strongly believe in the power of this show to bring people together to focus on what is important in life, especially at such a difficult time,” says Mr. Okouchi.

The first read-thru and cast meeting will be 10/19/2008 from 10 am to 2 pm.

9008 Center Street
Manassas, VA

For more information, please contact Mr. Okouchi at info@vpstartcrow.com or (800) 660-8580, or visit www.vpstartcrow.com.

ABOUT VPSTART CROW PRODUCTIONS, INC.
Founded in 1994, Vpstart Crow Productions, Inc. (pronounced “upstart”) is a non-Equity and non-profit professional theatre company dedicated to performing the works of William Shakespeare and other theatre classics. Vpstart Crow’s mission is to produce live theatre as a vital, accessible and exciting part of community life. Employing a resident company of local professional actors and artists of the highest caliber, Vpstart Crow is dedicated to breaking down the barriers between audience and actors in a performance style that is thought-provoking and altogether vpstartling.

The term “vpstart crow” comes from one of Shakespeare’s rival English playwrights, Robert Greene. In his 1592 pamphlet, Groats-Worth Of Wit Bought With A Million Of Repentance, Greene criticizes Shakespeare: “… for there is an vpstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tigers hart wrapt in a players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum (“Johnny-do-it-all” or “Jack-of-all-trades”), is in his owne conceit the onely ‘Shake-scene’ in a countrey.” In fact, Vpstart Crow spells its name with a “v” rather than a “u” in reference to the way the English language was written in Shakespeare’s day.