GLENDALE : Shows to Raise Funds for Public Library

A group intent on saving Glendale’s public library system from the effects of city funding cuts is putting on a show.

Friends of the Glendale Public Library, a nonprofit group that raises money for books, children’s activities and other library programs, is teaming up with A Noise Within, a local Shakespearean and classic American theater group, to stage two performances of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.”

“Funding has been severely cut in Glendale for the past three years,” said Nancy Spiller, a member of the group’s board of directors.

“The book purchasing budget for the central library, five branches and bookmobile is $200,000, half its 1990 level of $400,000,” she added.

Last year, the library was able to buy 11,000 books, compared to 20,000 books two years earlier. Spiller said that is “sorely inadequate” for a library system that has 180,000 cardholders and serves about 1.3 million people a year.

Spiller said “Of Mice and Men” was chosen partly because Steinbeck was a Glendale-area resident and because the Pulitzer Prize-winning author would “no doubt be saddened by the rapidly declining state” of public libraries today. Early in his writing career, Steinbeck lived in a house just a block from where the Eagle Rock Plaza now stands.

Performances of “Of Mice and Men” will be at 8 p.m. Friday and Nov. 11 at the repertory group’s theater in the Masonic Temple building, 234 S. Brand Blvd. Tickets are $12 for the first performance and $19 for the second performance, and the proceeds will go to the library group’s general fund to be used for various programs.