Mother Road
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Mother Road

By Octavio Solis Directed by Bill Rauch World Premiere
March 3 – October 26, 2019 Angus Bowmer Theatre
Multimedia The Buzz Suitability and Accessibility The Artists The Venue
Multimedia The Buzz Suitability and Accessibility The Artists The Venue

A modern tale of legacy, family and social justice

Inspired by John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, this world-premiere play by Southern Oregon–based playwright Octavio Solis (Don Quixote, El Paso Blue) finds hardworking and hard-living William Joad with no blood kin to inherit the family farm.

No one, that is, until he finds an unexpected relation: Martín Jodes—a young Mexican-American man descended from Steinbeck’s original protagonist Tom Joad. Directed by Bill Rauch in his last season as artistic director, this powerful story—filled with humor and heart—about land, family and survival inventively reverses the Joads’ mythic journey, as these modern-day Joads travel from migrant farm-worker camps in California back to Oklahoma.

This play shares a cast and director with another of our season’s plays, La Comedia of Errors, a bilingual adaptation (easy to understand for English, Spanish or bilingual speakers!) of Shakespeare’s zaniest comedy. This company within our larger company celebrates the repertory experience.

Length: Approximately 2 hours, 40 minutes, including one intermission

#MotherRoadOSF

Sponsors

  • LEAD SPONSORS
  • Helen and Peter Bing
  • Bertie Bialek Elliott - Buffett Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County
  • Louise Gund
  • PRODUCING SPONSORS
  • Yogen and Peggy Dalal
  • The Robert and Star Pepper Foundation
  • SPONSORS
  • Edgerton New Play Award Logo
  • National Endowment for the Arts
  • PARTNERS
  • The Birrell Family
  • Lynn Booth and Kent Kresa
  • Nancy and Donald de Brier
  • Henderson-Sonna Family
  • Carole Howard
  • Kevin and Suzanne Kahn
  • Kathleen Quinn and Michael McClain
  • Steyer-Taylor Family
  • Wally and Sheila Weisman
  • Jim and Kate Wolf-Pizor

Trailer: Mother Road

The Buzz

“A compelling drama enacted by a talented cast… The play deals with heavy subject matter – racism, immigration, family secrets, cancer – but does so with moments of levity, creativity, and hopefulness.”
aNewsCafe.com
“A rich and powerful narrative that has a compelling unity. The talented performers give life to the words, and every moment stands out… A story that will make you grieve and laugh and hope.”
Ashland Tidings
A new play at Oregon Shakespeare Festival imagines a sequel for the Steinbeck classic The Grapes of Wrath. Mother Road by playwright Octavio Solis tells of a Latino American farm worker and a journey across the country.
OPB's Think Out Loud
Octavio Solis on growing up a ‘skinny brown kid’ on the U.S.-Mexico border
PBS NewsHour
Suitability Suggestions

A lyrical and timely continuation of the Joad family saga, Mother Road contains profanity and racial slurs as well as occasional violence. There is a rape story described as part of a character’s backstory. It should be suitable, and educational, for mature middle-school students and up.

Accessibility

The Angus Bowmer Theatre is outfitted with an elevator that takes patrons to either Row E or Row K.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is committed to accessibility. We recognize the needs of persons with disabilities and strive to make our facilities and productions accessible to all. OSF offers a variety of accommodations, outlined here.

 

Creative Team

* Member of Actors' Equity Association (AEA)

Cast

Chorus/Ensemble: Catherine Castellanos*, Armando Durán*, Fidel Gomez*, Jeffrey King*, Cedric Lamar*,  Amy Lizardo*,  Mark Murphey*, Tony Sancho*, Caro Zeller*

* Member of Actors' Equity Association (AEA)
** AEA Professional Theatre Intern

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Angus Bowmer Theatre

From its inception, the Angus Bowmer Theatre has welcomed our patrons with the graciousness of the man for whom it was named, OSF’s founder Angus L. Bowmer. The immediacy between company and audience members in this space allows for theatrical voyages of human discovery, guided by some of the world’s greatest classical and contemporary playwrights. The theatre seats 600, and quite seriously, there is no bad seat in the house.

For the 2025 season, the Angus Bowmer Theatre vom (the entrance/exit passageways for actors) on house right will not be in use and thus available for seating.

Our 2019 Season