Valley Community Theatre in Solvang announces auditions for a June production of Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing.

VCT is collaborating with Director Peter Frisch, who recently retired as executive director of The Granada in Santa Barbara. Before that, he directed theater departments at Harvard University, Juilliard and Carnegie-Mellon University, and directed for stage and television.

Awake and Sing will run June 4-11 at The Little Theater in the Santa Ynez Valley.

The play takes place in a cramped Bronx tenement during the Great Depression, where a working-class Jewish family copes with financial hardship even as they dream of a brighter future.

Matriarch Bessie Berger’s fierce determination keeps her family afloat, but at great emotional cost to her children. Gritty, passionate, funny and heartbreaking, Odets’ 1935 masterpiece beautifully captures both the hopes and the struggles of an unforgettable American family.

Auditions will be held this Saturday, March 26, at the Santa Ynez Grange, 2374 Alamo Pintado Ave. in Los Olivos.

The cast includes two women (ages 45 to 55 and 20 to 27) and seven men (ages 20 to 70-plus), all but one influenced by Yiddish speech, inflection and temperament.

For full character descriptions, send a request via email to valleycommunitytheatre@hotmail.com. To schedule an audition, call Lynda Kelley at 805.245.9775. Come prepared to do a cold reading.

— Laura Birrell for Valley Community Theatre.