CATS to present “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet”

Community Asian Theatre of the Sierra (CATS) announces auditions for its Spring 2015 show, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford. Hotel was first commissioned, produced, and developed in the “Book-It Style” by Book-It Repertory Theatre of Seattle, Washington, and was adapted for the stage by Annie Lareau.

Breaking box office records in Seattle with an extended run in 2012, CATS is pleased to stage its California premiere in April and May 2015 at the Nevada Theatre. The “Book-It Style” transforms literary works into theatrical productions. Our 2010 production of Snow Falling on Cedars was performed in the “Book-It Style.”

Hotel is an historical fiction. Henry Lee’s memory takes him from 1980s Seattle to his childhood as a Chinese-American student in an exclusive all-White school in the 1940s. Isolated and bullied, Henry finds comfort in the unlikely figure Keiko Okabe, a Japanese student.

Following the Japanese invasion of China, Henry’s father forbids their friendship and despite increasing hardship, the friendship becomes a budding romance only to be cut short by evacuation and internment. Forty years and a lifetime later, newly a widower, Henry struggles to bridge the gap between his Chinese father and his American son, between America past and present, between despair and hope, and finally between the girl he loved and the woman who can finally give him peace.

Auditions for Hotel will be held at the Nevada Theatre on Saturday and Sunday, September 20 and 21 (9-12), with callbacks by invitation only on Monday, September 22 (6-9 p.m). Seeking a big cast of Asians, all ethnicities, male and female, adults, young adults, teenagers, and a few children.

-CATS