For Immediate Release
May 12, 2008

MANASSAS –Vpstart Crow Announces Auditions for the Second Preview Production of its 15th season.

Having previously acted in numerous productions, directed A Christmas Carol and assistant directed Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar for Vpstart Crow, veteran actor/director Paul D. Rubenstein returns with Shakespeare's classic comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Auditionees should prepare a one to two minute comic, Shakespearean monologue. Sides will be provided if needed. Performers may be cast in multiple roles. Bottom, Hermia, Helena, Demetrius, and Lysander will not be doubled.

Auditions will be held in Manassas at the Cramer Center on Thursday, May 22 at 7:00 PM, Tuesday, May 27 at 7:00 PM, and Callbacks, if needed, will be held on Thursday, May 29 at 7:00 PM if needed.

The address is:

9008 Center Street
Manassas, VA

For more information, please contact Mr. Rubenstein at artistic@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.